Re: [-empyre-] boundaries, or not

[Glenn Bach <gbach@csulb.edu>]

fizzion wrote:

> The natural world exists on many different sensory planes, all integrated
> for/by our senses. Technology allows us to listen to the stars and to the
> sounds of electrons. So many possibilities, so many stories to tell.

This is what attracted me to microsound, or at least the metaphor of 
microsound, in the first place: the idea of a music of the spheres, 
micro evoking macro.  String theory as (highly simplified) poetic image: 
matter at its most fundamental level is simply a vibration of energy.  A 
note struck, a chord.  How cool is that?  I haven't yet read anything 
about membrane theory, but that, too, might serve as a fertile metaphor.

While I think that the term "synesthesia" might be a bit overused at 
times, I think it's a valid goal for those of us interested in 
crossing/blurring/fusing boundaries between genres and between senses. 
While I've dabbled in low-tech video (a few years ago I had a show of 8 
video pieces based on my living in NYC for a year-and-a-half), the 
audio-visual connection in my work is much more subtle, especially with 
the sound drawings:

http://www.csulb.edu/~gbach/sounddrawingsdraft.htm

The first is, unfortunately, a bad slide scan of an earlier sound 
drawing, with a detail; the next is a direct scan of a very early 
soundwalk drawing.  While these drawings were direct attempts at 
documenting sounds that I heard, my most recent work loosens the focus a 
little and allows for all kinds of sound tracery: direct observation, 
sounds remembered, sounds imagined, sound sources pregnant with the 
possibility of sound, sonic objects tracing a footprint a la photographs 
of atoms, sound waves frozen, the sound of the pencil hitting the paper, 
abstract markmaking inspired by the look of sound-derived marks, etc.

I hope to have some examples of this recent work soon.

For others whose drawings share an affinity with mine, see Steve Roden 
http://www.inbetweennoise.com/schindlerdrawings.html

and William Anastasi (not sound-related, per se, but using similar types 
of conceptual parameters).  [Anastasi's work was included in a great 
catalog, Afterimage: Drawing Through Process (MIT Press and MOCA LA), an 
absolute must-have].
http://www.galeriewinter.at/fr_i_artists.htm
http://starbulletin.com/2001/04/22/features/story4.html

I'm also working through Cy Twombly, a long favorite of mine.


Alan Sondheim wrote:
>
> It's also the case with teaching; I was at Florida International
> University for a year - before they terminated the 'new media line' - 
and it was a horror show.

Yikes.  I can only imagine.  What programs, then, are out there that are 
truly new media, both in physical infrastructure and attitude?

Best,

G.