Acts of Balancing and Unbalancing

Reflections on the feedback jars as instruments

Kathy Hinde

Rather than actively ‘making sound’, I perceive the feedback jars as a way to ‘create the conditions from which sound can emerge’.

They are instruments that are have some agency of their own and are not conducive to being fully controlled. They are affected by their context and environment. External factors, such as other sounds in the space, affect how they behave.

Whilst browsing my notebooks, I stumbled across these notes following a conversation with John Godfrey during the development of aobau:

Negotiating with - a way of performing

Inductive System - the installation is this too

( with an arrow leading to ) … put ‘dirt’ in the system

Perhaps the best way to describe the ‘feedback glasses’ might be, Instruments to be ‘negotiated with’.

Putting ‘dirt’ in the system, (John’s terminology) was based on our conversations about ways to ‘unbalance’ the system through other external means. This could be interpreted as the other sounds in the room, some of which are made intentionally by musicians playing instruments, along with the acoustic properties and ambient sounds of the room.

I’m fascinated with how these unstable instruments provide a unique provocation or perhaps could even be considered as an ‘open score’ in themselves - playing an active role influencing how musicians improvise with them directly and as part of an ensemble.