Acts of Balancing and Unbalancing
In the text Kathy wrote for this piece in Sonic Book 1, she said:
Rather than actively ‘making sound’, I perceive the feedback jars as a way to ‘create the conditions from which sound can emerge’.
Perhaps the best way to describe the ‘feedback glasses’ might be, Instruments to be ‘negotiated with’.
They are instruments that are have some agency of their own and are not conducive to being fully controlled.
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.
I decided to remove the built-in software feedback balancing system, without which, a significant element of danger is brought into play for the performer, who is now required to manually balance the feedback.
What do these ideas mean in practice? They are all exciting concepts, but of course they are also challenging in the context of the West’s musical traditions, which see sound-making objects as things that must be ‘mastered’ in order to communicate something. We quite rightly argue that technical skill is required in order to communicate a complex message, and we have a very soft spot for musicians who demonstrate virtuosity. As long as you believe that the communication of a message from one person to another is the point, then this belief holds water.
The idea that not being a master of something might, itself, be a valuable thing is a relatively new idea in our music. Russolo, the Futurist responsible for the most radical aspects of that movement’s approach to sound, valued the fact that he was not a trained musician: he argued that this gave him a fresh perspective and allowed him to break free of the limited world of musical sounds. It’s interesting to note that the only conventional composer in the Futurist movement - Pratella - produced work of considerable banality that was a very long way away from embracing the cutting edge of Futurist thought. Fifty years later, the Fluxus movement set itself in full opposition to the idea of art made by any kind of skilled artistic elite. In his 1963 manifesto, Maciunas declared the need to “Promote living art, anti-art, promote NON ART REALITY to be fully grasped by all peoples, not only critics, dilettantes and professionals”. In 1965, he argued that in order to
“establish artist’s nonprofessional status in society, he must demonstrate artist’s dispensability and inclusiveness, he must demonstrate the self-sufficiency of the audience, he must demonstrate that anything can be art and anyone can do it.”
Kathy Hinde