The Usually Unwanted

By listening to a soundscape or a recording and by investigating the elements that form it, one can observe and define sound objects that contribute to its quality and character. An original recording before being edited includes objects which are a result of the actual recording process. These unwanted artefacts are usually discarded and put aside as they are irrelevant to the context of the recorded material. By recognising this recorded material as sonorous objects we can then apply our skills and use them as the base and source for creative practice.

After observing several environmental recordings and my personal phonographic work before the stage of editing, I started distinguishing these unwanted artefacts and started a reverse editing process. The trashed materials – which anyway have already been used in previous projects – were the actual clean and natural soundscapes while what was kept as potential material for artistic applications and use were the usually unwanted objects.

A few examples of objects like these are the following:

• Wind distorting the microphone
• The on/off button of the recorder,
• Clipping due to excessive gain,
• Microphone handling noise,
• The sound of clothes,
• Breathing, Coughing

As a result, by unwanted things I define all the audio artefacts recorded that are a result of the recording process and would never be used in a phonographic work but they would normally be discarded. To achieve better definition, I will call internal sonorous objects those that are related to the context of the soundscape and the aims of the sound artist and external sonorous objects those that have no relevance to the context of the recording. We can easily then conclude that such artefacts are not only medium related (digital recorder, microphone, tape etc) sonorous objects but all the external sound objects of an intended concept.

Unwanted Object No 1 by Sonologik

Unwanted Things - Recycled Sound

People who use sound as their medium for artistic expression, and even more those that deal with concrete/recorded sound, tend to focus their efforts in capturing the perfect recording. They equip themselves with Hi-Fi equipment (recorders, microphones and editors), try to record with clarity and precision avoiding at the same time all possible unwanted artefacts like handling noise or wind distortion. During phonographic work, there will always be such artefacts that later on, during the editing process of the file, are being discarded.

Recently I was going through my environmental recordings for the project Forest in a Forest (Exhibition and installation in collaboration with photographer Naama Kostiner, April 2010 - Israel) and realised that huge amounts of audio had been thrown in the trash. I took some time to listen carefully to these Unwanted Things and observed that from an acousmatic point of view they were actually very interesting. Weird textures, amplitude differences and spectral variations danced in my ears as I was listening more and more to these trashed audio files. The more I was listening, the more I was forgetting their nature and source thus I was focusing on their quality and started treating them in my head as potential materials to be used for creative sound practice.

I decided then to go deeper into the subject and by using the time and resources provided to me during my residency in Krems, I intend to conduct a practice based research on which I will try and create an artwork using these unwanted materials.

The City of Krems

The town of Krems belongs to the region of Lower Austria and is located on the north shore of the river Danube approximately 75 Km from Vienna. Krems is surrounded by vineyards and is famed for its quality wine. The region has a very rich history and many of the buildings were raised during the 15th century and were renovated providing to the region a unique identity.

The Lower Austria company has its headquarters in Krems and each year they provide accommodation and resources to various international artists from all artistic backgrounds in order to produce original work. The town itself hosts numerous exhibitions and festivals and places like the Kungsthalle, the Factory and the Caricature Museum turning the city into an artistic resort.