Subject: Acousmatic - do the intent and the listening conditions alter it?
From: Lisa Whistlecroft (Lisa@stonegnome.net)
Date: Sat Dec 30 2006 - 07:54:19 EST
Dear All,
Excuse the ugly title - I was trying to get the essence of my enquiry
into the subject line!
I wondered if people might be willing to share their thoughts on a
few questions I'm pondering? OK, I know people here are usually
willing to share their thoughts... So please will you?
My own thought process is this.
Taking Francois Bayle's definition of 'acousmatic' as described and
discussed by Francis Dhomont in his cec article (reprinted by SAN at
http://www.sonicartsnetwork.org/ARTICLES/ARTICLE1996DHOMONT.html):
The acousmatic-ness derives in a large part from the intention that
the music exists without visible cause and that it is indeed listened
to in that way (at this moment, I'm not concerned explicitly with the
additional and crucial sense it carries of an *ambiguity* of source
actually at the sound level - concrete or abstract (creating real,
unreal or surreal worlds, cf Jonty Harrison)).
My questions are:
Would an otherwise acousmatic piece cease to be acousmatic if it were
performed as the sound for a dance? i.e. does the act of presenting
a visual happening in conjunction with the sound nullify the
acousmatic nature of the composition, even though the dancer is not
making the sounds, nor miming to them - but IS creating a parallel
(and intimately related) art form presentation in the same space at
the same time?
If the piece were to have been created specifically for the purpose
of accompanying (in the sense of journeying with, and serving, but
not of being subservient to) the dance - would that preclude forever
it being an acousmatic piece?
I'm not so much bothered about performance here - my feeling is that
if the music makes little sense without the dance, then it should not
be played alone, and a concert piece should be made from it for
concert performance. What I'm worrying about is whether it makes any
sense to talk about it as an acousmatic composition (based on those
ambiguities of source IN the sound, the abstract constructs built
from concrete but de-contextualised sound material, the creation of
the otherworldly in the listener's imagination) when it will be being
heard as part of an integrated audio and visual experience.
So I'm interested in thoughts and opinions from all - and especially
from people who have written for dance - and then perhaps wanted to
talk/write about it!
(The programme notes are easy - it's an electroacoustic score - it's
the conversations that are interesting me!)
Cheers,
Lisa
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