This bilingual edition (Norwegian and English) is a collection of texts presented at the symposium Soundscape in the Arts that was organised by NOTAM and the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo in April 2010 and is edited by Jøran Rudi. The contributors are composers, visual and installation artists, sculptors, and film sound artists and recordists.
The term soundscape as introduced by Murray Schafer in the 70s refers to any environment of sound; its uses in the sound-based arts until today are numerous and diverse. Nevertheless, underlying any soundscape there exists a complex system of relations within the environment that offer a sonorous result. Due to this complexity, it is well beyond our ability to pay attention simultaneously to all of our sounding surroundings. Furthermore sounds are not static objects. Listeners are unable to retain the same kind of attention to them for long. It is thus inevitable that there exist different approaches to the soundscape, as it has to do with various ways and types of listening all related to potential interpretations. The soundscape is constructed by each listener according to his or her experience, attention and intentions.
In this edition a selection of approaches to the soundscape in the arts is presented and discussed together with theoretical and analytical discussion on soundscape and listening. Although the chapters contain independent authors’ statements, the parts together offer a broad coherent overview. The collection is very interesting both in the way that aspects of soundscape are discussed and highlighted and as a rich documentary of ideas, artistic approaches and personal reflections by the particular artists. Reading it, I had quite often the feeling that there are similarities – not in the context and the findings of each work presented – but in terms of more general aspects of the approaches. Concerning the works presented, for example, ‘listening to’ the environment, questioning the experience, paying attention, being open to discovery, in a way being inclusive, although expressed differently from chapter to chapter, are all common factors thus connecting links with original soundscape practices.
In the introductory section ‘Soundscape in the Arts’ (pp. 173–81), Jøran Rudi explains and discusses the structure of the collection and presents the authors and their subject matter.
Although the term soundscape, and its relation to terminology and methodology, is not new, and it has been explained quite a lot since the 1970s, the perspective taken by Jøran Rudi in ‘Soundscape and Listening’ (pp. 183–92 in the English section of this bilingual book), introducing and discussing the very basics of the soundscape approach to art and research while making the necessary historical connections, is one of the best introductions I have read. It is remarkable that it is both an introduction and an interpretation of the original definitions and ideas put forward by Murray Schafer in 1977.
In the second part, selected ways of listening are discussed in relation to the soundscape approach. Earlier in the ‘Introduction’ (pp. 183–92), the tendency towards a holistic way of listening is presented: ‘The interest in holistic listening is dominant in this art, and the sounds themselves, what they refer to and can be associated with, have come into focus’ (p. 169).
The composer Henrik Hellstenius in ‘Listening and Listening Intentions’ (pp. 195–9) questions listening modes and intentions as ways to create musical meaning and value, using as an example Luc Ferrari's Presque Rien no. 1 and a ‘guided listening tour’ inside a shopping centre in central Oslo. He writes: ‘As a guide, I took on the role of a composer, indicating meanings and possible ways of listening, and shaped the timing of events by leading the group around while ordering them to put on or take off their earmuffs’. He concludes that: ‘Using more of the sounds from the outside world in combination with conventional instruments might change both the way we listen and the way we understand music. It brings the basic material of the art form closer to our personal everyday surroundings, and might possibly also change the way we listen to our surroundings’ (p. 199).
Sculptor Kristof Georgen introduces the idea of ‘sonic sphere’ in ‘Heard through the Wall: Places of the Sonic Sphere’ (pp. 201–15). Here he explains why and how he is using sound recording, and describes his approach as applied in two installation works: alone and No. 26.
Anders Vinjar in ‘Nature as Art’ (pp. 217–23) discuss and questions the concepts of art and nature in relation to the soundscape approach, giving examples from the work of composer and percussionist Kjell Sampkof.
David Monacchi in ‘Recording and Representation in Eco-Acoustic Composition’ (pp. 225–48) presents the concept and categories of ecoacoustic composition, discusses technical and aesthetic aspects of the various techniques of surround recording and presents his work Integrated Ecosystems.
In ‘Out into the Sound of What we Don't Know: An Interview with Jana Winderen’ (pp. 251–60) by Jøran Rudi the reader is given the opportunity to listen to the artist talking about her background, the ways she works and her goals. Jana Winderen is the winner of the 2011 Golden Nica award at the Prix Ars Electonica in the category Digital Musics & Sound Art with her piece Energy Field. She is an artist between artistic domains who usually works with recordings of soundscapes of which most us are unaware. She explains that: ‘using hearing to gain an understanding of the inhabitants of the sea and their sound environments, we can increase the respect for, and the knowledge of, the animals that live there, and how we influence their sonic environments’ (p. 251).
Francisco Lopez, in his republished poetic writing ‘Wine and Dust Purposeless Memory Scraps [and Some of their Consequences]: From a Passionate Drifter’ (pp. 261–8) takes us with him to a sounding experience through time and places, where sounds and the rest of the important and unimportant things taking place are inter-related in peculiar and in cases synaesthetic ways.
A second interview (the first has been published in Organised Sound 10(2): 97–101) by Jøran Rudi with Bill Fontana is included in this edition: ‘Resounding Experience’ (pp. 269–77). Here Fontana gives a first-person insight into his work and also comments on his recent installation work River Soundings, which was presented last year at Somerset House in London.
In this interview Fontana speaks about his approach: ‘I spent a lot of time travelling the river in order to find sound locations that I thought were special, and I then created an acoustic journey through these spaces’ (p. 272).
For those who have not had the opportunity to visit the installation, there is a stereo sample mix on the artist's website (http://resoundings.org/Pages/River_Sounding.html). He says about this: ‘I'm trying to create a journey, because these are not sounds that you normally hear in the same place at the same time. They exist in different places, and I am trying to create a large view of all these things together, and let it be up to the listener to decide upon what that view means. I certainly don't focus on processing and altering the sounds themselves, I combine them to create a story. This example mix was merely a model, an example of what this piece could be, yet mimicking the real installation experience’ (p. 273).
The work of Bill Fontana is discussed further by Camille Norment in ‘Resounding Relativity’ (pp. 279–91). Here a link between his work and that of Duchamp and Cage is proposed, while a detailed analysis of his works is presented. Rudi introduces this essay as: ‘An insightful analysis of Fontana's work … written for this book by Camille Norment, who reads Fontana's works as science fiction, which as a genre often departs from the current situation in its descriptions of a possible future’ (p. 178).
In ‘Some Thoughts on Soundscape Composition’ (pp. 293–308), Kjell Samkopf discuss in depth his methodologies for working with soundscape material and connects this approach with traditional compositional strategies. In many ways he connects the two worlds: composing for instruments and the soundscape approach to composition. The text is also a documentary of the ideas, methodology and practices behind his compositions: Mårådalen Walk, Mountain Listening and Burragorangian Stones.
‘Experiential Listening, Paradox, Representation and Phenomenology’ (pp. 309–16) by Natasha Barrett focuses on different types of discourse. The text functions as a response to Francisco Lopez's writings, which focus on a phenomenological and not representational approach to sound, and here she proposes an alternative outlining how these ideas can be found in her own compositional work. For example, she argues that if the object of philosophical reflection is the experience of listening, then it is affected by the way we apprehend sound in the context of the composition rather than by the nature of the sound itself, which is indeed a different standpoint. It is important to read this writing in relation to her compositional work.
The edition concludes with an interview with Owe Svensson by Gisle Tveito. In this, Svensson describes with great detail how he composed all the sound for Sacrifice, the last film of Andrei Tarkovsky. Both the technical details, and the ideas and decisions he had are presented. Furthermore, the role of sound in the final experience of this work is discussed.
I would like to conclude this review with a quotation from Rudi which I think unites all these different approaches to the soundscape presented in this edition: ‘Soundscape art does not just exist in the world, it is rather that the world becomes art if the listeners let it – and that requires consideration and respect, not the least for the listener's own ability to grasp and make use of the opportunities that surround us every moment of the day’ (p. 181).
