Friday night was the opening of Sound Artist Stephan Moore’s Sound Universe and solo show ‘Music of Transmission Damage’. The audience entered a darkened RAYGUN space filled with distorted noise and disrupted audio files. Stephen played 8 different files, 4 music and 4 speaking files;
1. Donald Trump 1st address to Congress
2. Malcolm Turnbull addressing a group of people on financial inequality
3. Sarah Palin endorsing Donald Trump
4. Pauline Hanson’s maiden speech
5. Aaron Copland “Rodeo Dances”
6. Percy Grainger “Lincolnshire Posy”
7. TigerLily “Ciao Baby”
8. Bassnectar “Unlimited Possibilities”
Stephan was situated in a hotel room in Ponta Delgada in the Azores with his laptop ‘talking’ to our laptop/audience. Stephan used Skype as a communication means to receive the speech and music files, which then ‘electrocuted’, ‘destroyed’ and ‘broke down’ the audio files. The sound we heard in the RAYGUN space had passed between Stephan’s hotel room in Ponta Delgada and RAYGUN Projects, Toowoomba. Each time Trump (for example) tried to talk, the software would distort and dismantle his words, making them illegible, and the same for the other 7 files. Stephan is constantly travelling the globe, visiting institutions, delivering papers to the Conservatorium’s of Music and pretty much encouraging music engagement through experimentation. Below is a snap shot of the Skype dialogue we utilised using alternate addresses, between our audience and him during the opening;
Q. Was there a reason why you chose the speakers? I am thinking about the internet as a means for communication, and its flaws and I think there is a lot to think about the current political trends in terms of how the internet has allowed them to happen, and encourage them.
Q. Where are you right now? Eating? On the toilet? I am currently sitting at breakfast in my hotel in Ponta Delgada in the Azores.
Q. You’re about to deliver the paper over there. What is it about? Mitigating motorway noise in urban residential environments using generative musical systems. It’s the work I was doing in Melbourne and Sydney. I am here with Jordan Lacey from RMIT.
Q. Who inspires your practice? I wrote a lot about influences in the catalogue, but mostly the disciplines of Acoustic Ecology and Pauline Oliveros’s Deep Listening Practice.
Q. When are you visiting our University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, to share your experience with our students and associates? When I am invited! I’d love to!
RAYGUN 