Alles zum Thema:

2/2014 Shakespeare im zeitgenössischen Musiktheater

1/2014 Das Musiktheater des Peter Eötvös

3/2013 Komponieren im Exil

2/2013 Der Componist Gottfried von Einem

Young British Women

New Directions in Sound Art

In the UK, 'Sound Art' seems to receive relatively low exposure when compared with more traditional classical or contemporary music genres. Often elided with popular music styles, or presented on the fringe of contemporary music festivals and events, Sound Art rarely receives the consideration it deserves. As a result women who produce Sound Art are often underrepresented both in terms of their appearances in public arenas where Sound Art is 'performed' or showcased and in the general consciousness of what sound art in the UK 'is'. This article seeks to redress that balance, in part, by introducing four young British female sound artists and their work, and doing so crucially at a point when it is possible to say that their careers have not yet been mediated by institutions who 'represent' Sound Art as it is presented in the UK. These four sound artists represent a number of different directions in Sound Art and are not presented as all encompassing examples of the music made by women, or, indeed, all UK artists, but are exemplary of the interesting, and perhaps undervalued music to be found being made by women in the UK today. These artists are Caroline Lucas, Lauren Sarah Hayes, Claire M. Singer, and Karen Lauke.

I – The contemporary context of women’s contributions to Sound Art in the UK

As a musical genre or tradition, Sound Art in the UK has not enjoyed the exposure that other contemporary arts and music have been afforded. Although recent discussion around the role of the UK new music institution, "Sound and Music", has accused it of privileging Sound Art over other types of composition,1 the representation of Sound Art at UK music festivals and concert series, outside of specialist events, remains relatively low. As a result, Sound Art and sound artists are often elided with popular music styles and performers, or presented on the fringe of contemporary music festivals and events. Within this backdrop, Sound Art rarely receives the consideration it deserves. Further evidence of its seeming lack of importance to institutions in the UK is the lack of award presented to a Sound Artist at the British Composer Awards in 2011.2 The context of this lack of representation of Sound Art is important because it restricts the contexts in which women who produce Sound Art are visible. As a result women who produce Sound Art are often underrepresented both in terms of their appearances in public arenas where Sound Art is performed or showcased, since these themselves are limited, and also in the general consciousness and understanding of what sound art in the UK 'is'.

But this article is not about repression of women's voices in the context of Sound Art in the UK. The excellent music being produced by UK sound artists, if it is not well represented presently, can be best promoted through discussion and exposure outside of the arenas which currently seek to promote it, rather than through debate and discussion of the roles of those arenas themselves.3 This article seeks to redress the balance of the representation of British women in Sound Art by focussing solely on four of its most talented proponents. This is by no means an exhaustive account of the recent developments in Sound Art in the UK, but highlights some of the more interesting trends, and the fact that women equally with men are at the forefront of innovation in the field.

All the women whose work I have presented here could be considered to be working with materials and ideas that have traditionally been the focus of composers: instruments, the body of the performer, found sounds, locations, and the sense of place. However, in their work they bring an important new perspective to these elements. It seems essentializing to say that only a female perspective could create this music, and that is certainly not what I am arguing, but it is also fair to claim that the uneasy position women have held in music history, even in the twentieth century, permits them a different view of the materials that have historically been used by male composers. With respect to more traditional and acoustic forms of composition, this has been recognised by Marcia Citron, who writes, "the sonata aesthetic stands as a symbol of western patriarchal values […] the conventions and subtext of the sonata aesthetic have privileged the masculine and held lesser meaning for women."4  The continuation of this uneasy relation between women and the traditional materials used by male composers has continued into the twentieth and twenty first centuries, and is evidenced in part by the poor representation of women in Sound Art despite their high participation. This provides them with further incentive to re-examine the discipline as it is today, and engenders a spirit of entrepreneurship resulting in works which fall outside of the mainstream.

The Sound and Music debate referred to earlier demonstrates that women's participation and representation in contemporary art is under threat not only from the attempts to marginalise them, within their own disciplines, but from the attempts to marginalise the disciplines in which they participate. On this, Jennifer Post has written that, "[a]lthough opportunities for women in music have greatly increased, the public still judges women separately from men. In many cultures there continue to be clear distinctions between women's and men's musical involvement in instrumental traditions, as composers, as soloists, or as performers in the public sphere. Women's performances are often looked upon as isolated occurrences."5 This, therefore, highlights the need to present the reality of the work of female sound artists in the UK as being the mainstream rather than the fringe of the work being undertaken.

II – Introduction to the composers

The introduction that I have given implies that there is a unifying issue of gender grouping the four artists whom I will introduce in this article. Whilst in some senses this may be true, despite the initial assessment of the UK Sound Art context, the artists on whom this article focuses also display significant differences in their work, outlooks and practices. These differences represent the diversity of Sound Art in the UK, and of Sound Art as a label for practice. Thus, I will first provide a short introduction to each of the artists in order to highlight the varying aims, motivations, and backgrounds of their work.

Caroline Lucas'6 work highlights the importance of notation in the performance as well as the kinds of interactions that performers can have with notation, and the kinds of notation that can provide musical information, such as in the Unnamed Maps Series works. In addition to this her work explores issues of identity, particularly English national identity and its diversity, as well as including a significant personal dimension, such as the use of autoethnography in the work There was an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman….7

Lauren Sarah Hayes'8 work links closely with her research into interaction in composition performance and improvisation. Using haptic feedback, she designs innovative performance models for interaction with live electronics. She is frequently the performer of her own works as a pianist and electronic performer, and collaborates with other performers. Her composition represents innovative use of and rethinking of the prepared piano as well as a re-thinking of the link between live instrument and live electronics.

Claire M. Singer9 is a composer of fixed media, multi-media, installation and live electronic works, and often features as a 'cello performer in her own works. She also composes for film, including the score for the film Armed Ambassadors.10

Karen Lauke11 is a composer of site-specific and spatialized works. In this respect she stretches the notion of site-specific, extending it to the compositional process as well as the performance such as in the piece Synecdoche: Praha.12 She also incorporates text and visual imagery into her work such as in Copper Vibrations.13 As a sound artist and sound designer she produces and presents innovative work in the UK and abroad.

All four of these women are composing against the mainstream of Sound Art in some way, and this links them as a group. However, in itself, being against the mainstream is not sufficient a characteristic to link them, since this claim could be made about any number of artists. As a group they demonstrate that Sonic Art is a wide and diverse artistic field, not merely concerned with technology or situated on the fringe of musical activities. Despite creating disparate artworks, through disparate methods, and generating disparate types of performances, there are linking characteristics between the music of these composers that contribute to the interest and importance of their works. These elements are those of the unconventional stance with respect to the concert hall and reception, interaction, embodiment, and tension between the familiar and the unfamiliar. In this respect, all of this work can be seen to be what Bruce Andrews describes as, "nonreferentially organized."14 That is, in its creation and in the perceptual experience of it,

"[m]eaning is not produced by the sign, but by the contexts we bring to [it]."15 I will address each of the links I have identified in turn, to serve as an introduction to the work of these women, their similarities and differences, and the important relation with contemporary society that this music performs. My conclusions have been drawn from my own analysis of the works, and from the results of semi structured long distance interviews with the composers themselves.

III – The unconventional stance with respect to the concert hall

The concert hall is a contentious artefact with respect to Sound Art. While some artists operate within traditional concert parameters, others avoid or subvert the concert space in their work. In all of these approaches, the relationship with the concert hall is important since its spectre is present in all considerations of musical performance. As Bruce Andrews notes, this is precisely because of the construction of subjectivities through the perception and interaction with art. He writes, "[i]deology works through the construction of subjects, by positioning, by address (or interpellation) - helping an unjust social order hold itself together. The spectator's (or reader's) subjectivity too often takes shape in a similar (compulsory) itinerary. (But not in the body of the work at hand)."16 Therefore the concert hall, or performance space, takes an active role in the constitution of work in performance, and for many sound artists is an important compositional consideration.

In many of the works of my four artists the concert hall is or appears to be negated. For example, Claire M. Singer has produced works which can be played in many spaces and which do not necessarily require a concert venue. On the ability to move works between spaces, Singer writes, “I […] use this to my advantage e.g the radiorobot or the tv installation which worked in a different way each time depending on area and reception."17 Lauren Sarah Hayes also touches on this idea, stating that, "my pieces will sound different when they are performed in different spaces, which is because of the systems that I set up though the use of live electronics. [This is] due to the nature of how the pieces proceed, often by way of machine listening."18 Although both composers embrace and work within concert hall spaces as well as creating the potential for works to be exhibited, this inclusion and acceptance of performance variability presents the venue as part of the piece and performance experience rather than simply its vehicle.

In a much more immediate way, in Karen Lauke’s work the use of space and location as the concert hall or space means that the concert hall itself becomes reconceptualised as a site of sound-experience. Lauke identifies this as one of the key aspects of her work,19 writing "[w]hether working in the empty shell of a swimming pool at Victoria Baths, a large auditorium at the Victoria & Albert museum, or outdoors in a country park, the space itself dictates the characteristics of certain aspects of my compositions. The idea of taking electro-acoustic diffusion techniques out of a traditional music venue context, employing them in an outdoor setting – with speakers down disused mine shafts or high up in the trees – is one of the enjoyable challenges of my work."20 Furthermore, Lauke goes on to say that issues of space "enhance the performance."21 Indeed the importance of the relationship of conceptualized sound with sound in space, and the perceptual and semantic network this creates is something that can be felt to be stressed by all four artists. Lauke’s explicit acknowledgement of the relationship of space with composition which can be seen to function in the perceptual way that Singer and Hayes also acknowledge, or the ideological way that Andrews describes, reflects the way in which this reflexive relationship between space and sound can be stated artistically.

Indeed, Caroline Lucas describes this as something with which she is continually concerned in her work. She writes that, "[c]onsidering how the musicians, audience and sound will interact within a (physical, aesthetic and acoustic) space and creating the possibility for reimagining/re-experiencing a space is an integral part of my practice."22 Lucas also notes that negative aspects of the concert hall tradition have impacted on this reimagining. On this she says, "my unease at the way the concert hall functions in the experience of live music stems from my background in popular and folk music. […P]opular and folk music more often create a live music experience which is more immersive, communal, visceral, physical and sometimes specifically tied up in an experience of the space/environment in which the performance is occurring."23 This issue of "liveness" in performance is one which I will address shortly. However, Lucas in this assessment situates her work outside of the concert-hall tradition as well as sometimes physically outside of the concert hall space itself.

The positions these composers take with respect to the concert hall are unconventional because they do not simply represent an outright negation of the concert hall. Instead, whilst producing works that may or may not interact with traditional performance spaces they all emphasize that the interaction of their works with space is an active part or ingredient of their music. This represents a move away from the consideration of the concert hall as artifact in either acceptance or negation: a powerful disengagement that reflects how these artists state musically that they set the terms of the discourse within their music.

IV – Issues of interaction

The issue of the concert hall highlights that interaction is a feature of much of the music of these four women.  But this interaction does not just take place between the works and their performance locations; the interaction with and of performers is one uniting element between these four women. It seems counterintuitive to suggest that the use of technology, media, and notation might facilitate this, but when traditional composer-performer relationships are considered as a facet of the aforementioned concert-hall ideologies that these composers negate the integration of such elements into performance can be seen as tools used to side-step the issues such ideologies imply and to facilitate a greater exchange of ideas between the composers and the performers of their works. Where these composers perform their own works, which they often do, the dialogue between composition as creative practice and performance as creative practice is also heightened.

Such interaction might be considered to give a special type of "liveness" to performers of the works of these composers, since the dialogue between performance and composition is one which might be considered to be ongoing even as the work is heard by an audience. Philip Auslander, who coined the term "liveness", recognises the role that technology and other media play in this exchange, writing that, "[l]ive performance now often incorporates mediatization to the degree that the live event is itself a product of media technologies."24 Furthermore, Auslander writes that, "[j]ust as mediatization is reflected in the presence of the apparatus of reproduction in the live setting, so too is it reflected in the forms and cultural positions of performance."25 It could definitely be claimed that the foregrounding of the interactive possibilities of the works contributes to the experience of the music of Lucas, Hayes, Singer, and Lauke.  Indeed, experience of this "liveness" is often key to the success of their work, since what is presented thus becomes an interative experience even for a passive audience.

In Lucas’ work the interaction of performers with the score is often of high importance when determining the outcome of the performance.  Lucas claims that she is, "looking at the boundaries of control and freedom, often favouring extreme freedom (graphic notation, improvisation and minimal direction), looking at the potential for a dynamic and ongoing creative interaction between the performer and score/tape part (composer) during 

rehearsal and performance combined with a radically ‘hands-off’ approach from myself when asking a performer to interpret a score."26 Her identification as a presence as a composer in the form of the score or tape part is one which is less readily communicated to the performer; in the instructions for her Unnamed Maps Series Lucas describes herself as the "cartographer" rather than the composer.27 The interaction she requires her performers to undertake with her materials is at the same time extremely free, allowing them to make decisions as to duration, what and when to play, and how to use the materials, and extremely complex since each set of parameters allows for a large number of possible outcomes.  In this, Lucas seems close to Nicholas Bourriaud’s description of the artist as a "semionaut."28 When asked as to the reaction of the audience to this focussed indeterminacy, Lucas states, "I just hope for any kind reaction, good or bad, the more extreme the better."29

Karen Lauke is a curator as well as artist, and often functions in this dual role. Her exhibition at the Victoria & Albert museum, Transformation and Revelation30, has provided a public opportunity for engagement not only with her work but her influences as a composer. This practice links with her own compositional approaches, of which a good example is her work The Ghost of Someone Not Yet Drowned (2012). Performed in Manchester’s Victoria Baths, a space no longer used in its original function, The Ghost of Someone Not Yet Drowned explored experience within, and the liveness of, space as related to present, past and future experience. The audience were given the opportunity to respond to the work through sending text messages and tweets which were incorporated into a projection. The work itself was the result of a reflexive compositional processes linking the development of the dance and the 16 channel speaker diffusion. Lauke explains, "[t]his resulted in a kind of feedback loop, and both the physical and aural performances grew organically from this live collaboration."31 Further consideration of interactivity in Lauke’s work can be seen in the work Memories Unearthed32 which was performed at Clifton Country Park in Salford. The audience were able to explore the rediscovered remains of the Wet Earth Colliery in which was installed a 16 channel diffusion setup. As the performer, Lauke says she was "able to respond to audience movement in a direct way, moving key sounds to where the audience would move to. The audience weren't always aware of the movement, but at times they were and would see the connection of what I was doing and where the sounds were coming from."33

In a less explicit way to Lucas and Lauke, Hayes and Singer also forground interactivity in their works through a relationship between the performer (who is often the composer) and the electronics. This allows them a great degree of control at the point of reception and the opportunity to interact with the audience in a similar way to that described by Lauke above.  On this, Lauren Sarah Hayes explains, "as well as considering audience responses, I constantly respond to them throughout the performance, so I would say it's more of a two-way thing,"34 while for Claire M. Singer this is a continuation of the relationship between sound and space: "I always think about where to place the audience for the best listening experience."35 Interactivity is therefore something that can function on many levels in these composers’ works.  However they all display it as a concern at all aspects of the creative process: the composition, performance and reception of their music.

V - Embodiment

The aspects of liveness and interactivity in the performances of Singer’s and Hayes’ works introduce the theme of the compositional use and appearance of the self in the work. All four composers appear as performers of their own works, and whether by design or necessity this means that the composer is foregrounded in the work causing a focus on the female voice, experience, and body. Merleau-Ponty writes that, "the body is essentially an expressive space,"36 and the image of the female composer-performer in the work can in all four cases be seen as an act of expressive difference, given the sound art context in the UK outlined at the beginning of this article. Further to this he writes that, "bodily experience forces us to acknowledge an imposition of meaning which is not the work of a universal constituting consciousness,"37 and similarly, Bourdieu notes that, "all the symbolic manipulations of body experience, starting with displacements within a symbolically structured space, tend to impose the integration of body space with cosmic space and social space."38 Therefore in addition to the negation of concert hall tradition and norms earlier discussed, this physical presence can be considered as a facet of the control of meaning that these composers are able to exert over their works.

Hayes explains that she does not feel that there is a necessity to distinguish between composition, performance, improvisation39 and that the inclusion of herself as a performer is, "not a 'necessity' as such, but simply my practice."40 She links her body to the physical act of playing, and therefore the link with the audience that she makes as one of explaining the performance. On this she writes, "[i]n a few of my piano pieces, I'm actually facing away from the audience, but it's still very visual as the (upright) piano is baring its strings, and the audience can see all the mechanics and extended techniques."41 Similarly, Karen Lauke sees the visual link with her body as a performer is part of a relationship with the audience that explains to them the nature of Sound Art performance. She writes on this,  "[t]he [theatrical] approach [where the sound 'operator' cannot be seen] may well be appropriate in most traditional settings, where sound is only used as an aural backdrop. However, my work tries to reposition sound as a key component of a performance, and as such adding the presence of the sound designer / composer as part of the visual presence of a piece, there for the audience to see and experience on par with any other performers."42

For Caroline Lucas, the inclusion of herself in her work is an act of auto-ethnography. She writes, "[t]he use of me, my body, my voice in performance was both a political and aesthetic decision. Political in that the pieces that make use of or reference to me are explicitly feminist pieces and make use my personal identity within the discourse that is presented in the work."43 However she also recognises this auto-ethnography as something that is performed in the compositional act whether or not it is acknowledged by the inclusion of the composer’s image, voice or body, writing that, "[t]he choice for me to perform the piece [There was an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman…] acknowledged the unavoidable subject within my creative practice and theoretical ideas."44 This echoes Lucas’ assertion that the composer is 'present' in the score or the electronic parts of a piece even when not physically present. As a difference to this attitude, Singer describes her cello performance as a "separate practice."45 Despite the inevitable physical and visual link with her body that is created when she performs her work, she perhaps acknowledges here the work she does as a performer as a further creative act to that she undertakes to make the piece.

VI - Tension between the familiar and the unfamiliar

Tension between familiar and unfamiliar elements in the work of all four composers is the final theme I have chosen to unite them. Musical material is often described as a composer’s "language" and Lucas, Lauke, Hayes and Singer in pushing the boundaries of meaning, convention and experience could also be considered to be pushing the boundaries of musical language in their works. In many ways they highlight what could be considered the discontents of musical language. Andrews writes that, "to imagine the limits of language is to imagine the limits of a whole form of social life."46 It is in this way that the four artists push the boundaries of their musical material; often causing or facilitating a re-thinking of everyday objects, spaces, places and of previous musical experiences.

Interestingly, when asked about this tension, the composers mostly focussed on issues of "newness". I share their concerns that the privileging of the "new" over other aspects of musical engagement can lead to impoverished musical products, as well as an impoverished understanding of music. However, all four artists also noted that they did recognise an element of innovation or "newness" in their work, and this seems to be where the tension between the familiar and unfamiliar is sited. For example, Claire M. Singer’s work, of mute things (2011) uses familiar objects (television sets), coupled with an indeterminate element (the content of the different channels the television sets receive) coupled with an unexpected element (the amplification of the sound emitted). Whilst the audience is drawn into this work through the promise of a familiar experience with the use of visual imagery, the sounding result is one which is unfamiliar.

Karen Lauke says of her work, "[The] desire to make sonic works more accessible to new kinds of audiences also lies at the heart of my decisions with regards to non-traditional spaces and locations – for instance, taking what would normally be a gallery or concert hall piece of diffused sonic art and situating it in a country park, taking my work to an audience that may not necessarily frequent the more traditional performance venues."47 So in Lauke’s case, innovation essentially drives inclusion. As for Singer, she uses a familiar experience through which to present the unexpected and unfamiliar. Touching on similar points, Lauren Sarah Hayes writes that, "I think integration of sound is more important than newness. […] A lot of the techniques I use are actually quite old, for example, I still love the sound of ring modulation. I use new technologies as tools to enable me to achieve the sounds and interactions with sounds that I need."48 Indeed, the reference to familiar sonic material, such as the combination of piano and percussion in her duo, můstek, is the familiar way in for her audiences in a similar way to Singer’s visual imagery or Lauke’s locations.

Finally, Caroline Lucas says of her work that, "there is a room for playing with expectations and working with the familiar (or tradition), and reinventing and reimagining this. […F]or me newness is about invention, which is predominantly shaped by the traces of experience, and limited by the bounds of imagination."49 This sums up well how this tension functions in the works of all four composers.

VII – Some Conclusions

This has been a short introduction and is by no means a conclusive investigation; much more could be written about all four sound artists featured here. In addition to this, many more similarities and differences between their works and creative practice could undoubtedly be drawn out. Despite this I hope to have situated these women as important exponents of the Sonic Art scene in the UK, which they undoubtedly are, and as composers whose various approaches are pushing new directions for Sound Art and artists. Theirs is music which deals with contemporary issues, arising from composition, performance, and the interaction of audiences with the performances and their related compositional processes. These new directions show that Lucas, Lauke, Hayes, and Singer all undertake active engagement with those who experience their music.

Many of the claims made by the women that I have highlighted here could be considered to be similar to those made by other composers; this is inevitable and by no means do I wish to present these artists as being isolated in their practice. However what is most interesting, and sometimes most unique, about their work is that these claims are most definitely played out in their music, and this short article demonstrates how that which informs their music is reflected not only in their compositional concerns but in their creative processes, performance practices, and the way that they situate their work within the creative sphere.