1997
Moment -
Historically the most important function of sound in communities
has been as a signal. A sound heard over a large area has been
used to share information among the inhabitants of communities
in all cultures since antiquity.
In early western cultures it was sound which defined the
community. The church bell announced not only services, but also
deaths, births, fire, revolt and festivals. By the year 800 it
was such a strong unifying force that the shape and limits of
the community itself were defined by its range. If you lived
beyond the range of the parish bell, you lacked the daily
information necessary to be a participant in society.
The sound signal is the first form of broadcasting, a medium
that simultaneously carries information to people in separate
places. This is a form of unification.
I call one group of my sound works Moment or Time pieces. They
are artworks which take the form of communal sound signals. The
basic idea of these works, though, is to form the sound signal
with a silence rather than a sound.
Instead of a bell which begins with a sudden clang and gradually
dies away, this concept is the opposite. The sound is introduced
gradually. Beginning inaudibly it grows slowly over a period of
minutes and, at its height, suddenly disappears.
The longsubtle emergence of the sound causes it to go unnoticed. It
becomes apparent only at the instant of its sudden
disappearance, creating a sense of silence.
The idea of making a sound experience by removing a sound may
seem strange at first, but in fact it occurs occasionally in
daily life. My favorite example is the coffee grinding machine
in a cafe. When the machine is first turned on in a noisy cafe
most people don't consciously notice it; talking just seems to
become a little more difficult. That is amazing in itself,
because the sound is quite loud. But it is also an expected
event in the cafe and the mind simply adjusts for it and goes on
with what it was doing.
When the coffee grinding is finished and the sound suddenly
stops, however, the space is suddenly enveloped in an aural
vacuum. What seems like a moment of complete silence occupies
the cafe.
This silent moment is not really silent though, the normal
sounds of the cafe go on. But for a few seconds after the sound
has gone, what one could call an aural afterimage is
superimposed on the sounds of the environment -- a spontaneous
aural memory or reconstruction perhaps, subtle and transparent,
engendered by the sound's disappearance
The nature of this afterimage is formed by the character of the
sound which produced it. In the case of the coffee grinding
machine it is a sense of relief when it stops; the sound is hard
and harsh. It is possible, though, to change the sensation of
the silence by changing the nature of the sound. Instead of
harsh and grating the sound can be warm or rich; instead of
loud, it could be subtle. In a Moment work I shape the
afterimage's character by shaping the sound's character,
building it within its community, by ear.
The spectrum of responses to sound is unlimited.
The range of responses to sound is unlimited.
The range of sentient responses to sound is infinite.
The scope of sentient responses to sound is infinite.
The scope of sentient responses to sound is unlimited.
The scope of sentient responses to sound is unbounded.
The spectrum of sentient responses to sound is infinite.
The spectrum of sentient responses to sound is unbounded.
The range of emotional responses to sound is infinite.
The scope of emotional responses to sound is infinite.
The scope of emotional responses to sound is unlimited.
The scope of emotional responses to sound is unbounded.
The spectrum of emotional responses to sound is infinite.
The spectrum of emotional responses to sound is unlimited.
The spectrum of emotional responses to sound is unbounded.
scope
spectrum
unlimited
unbounded
react
When set up on an hourly or daily basis, these periodic public
silences become integrated into the life of their communities.
The afterimage, shared by all who notice it, becomes a unifier,
spiritually tying together a community's diverse places and
activities momentarily throughout the day.
These artworks are neither makers of announcements nor keepers
of time as such. They are reinstatements of the joining force of
aural signals and extensions of their history.
Max Neuhaus
file: 1997 - 10 - 02