Currently I am inspired by the limitations of the human ear’s ability to filter and
decipher content when it is overloaded with many audible sources simultaneously. When
we have too much discernible information that needs to be translated at once, momentary
confusion is created. We become unable to distinguish the origins and definitions of sound
as they begin to overlap and pile up. Could you detect your friend’s voice through the
soundtrack of 5000 commuting people in a subway station during rush hour? Amid any
auditory chaos we begin to listen for something familiar so that we can focus on, and find
relief in, the recognizable, like sailors searching for a lighthouse from the deck of a
battered ship lost in a stormy sea.
This year I began to record, edit, and mix, languages and sounds into abstract
compositions. This kind of sound composition is known as musique concrète. Musique
concrète is a form of electroacoustic music that utilizes acousmatic sound as a
compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the sounds derived
from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical"
(melody, harmony, rhythm, meter, and so on). While making this work, I have been
thinking about isolation, transparency, eavesdropping, observation, and the overall
misinterpretation of familiar sounds. I have become interested in removing definitions from
the words, and the origins from the sounds, that I use to compose these sound pieces. My
intent is to exhibit an auditory emotion that exists within the phenomena of audible chaos.
These “sound environments” are a result of simultaneously overlapping multiple languages
and sounds to create momentary confusion when listened to. I hope to entice listeners into
attempting to translate the unidentifiable. I want them to find a connection to the emotional
content that exists beyond the literal definition and identity of the words and sounds they
are hearing.
Some of this work exists within the space of handmade clear glass capsules that
need to be investigated by using a stethoscope. These compositions are intended to be
listened to one person at a time, in order to simulate the isolation of thoughts inside one’s
head and give each viewer an uninterrupted chance to connect with each work. I make the
physical forms in clear glass because the material is unassuming, transparent, and has an
honest quality about it. What you see is what you get, or so you think. Most of the time,
sound cannot be physically seen, is relatively invisible, and is usually only recognized by
the vibration of our eardrums. The clear glass mimics the invisible/transparent quality of
sound that you cannot see, but it also acts as an window or separator, which I intend as a
way to physically replicate what I call “immediate vicinity isolation bubbles” or IVIBs: those
zones of imaginary privacy that seem to surround people as they nonchalantly talk about
their private concerns in public while using cellular phones. The glass physically separates
each of the works interior audio narratives from each other, thereby allowing each
composition of musique concrète to coexist in the same exhibition space without detracting
from one another. Utilizing this material allows me to build a transparent environment that
can diminish, or erase, the audible from the viewer without isolating their visual
perspective, thus creating the false sense of privacy that one has inside a phone booth. An
exchange of private dialogues take place and where every passerby is witness to the event
of that conversation even if they cannot hear it. I am giving the audience permission to
penetrate this separating layer and granting them access to a private interior where they
can eavesdrop, one person at a time, and indulge a momentary fascination.
Robert Lewis