Thesis Spring 2005
no[w]here
Sawako Kato

Description
Now here is no where: no[w]here is a sound art work for the soundscape of digital age. In the work, "no[w]here", now here becomes everywhere, at the same time, no where.For my thesis, I will research about the soundscape of digital age, especially the mobile and network technology related issue, and create the sound art work.

Background
I am a sound artist who is dealing with field recording and sound signal processing and have interest about the fusion of digital and organic.
I have a strong feeling that I am one part of the environment, and, in my composition, listening and capturing the environment is as important as composing and making sound by myself.
As a computer musician, I am the generation of after MAX/MSP: it means when I started music activities, many musicians were touring the world only with one or two laptops. We don't need the huge heavy machine for our performance and don't need to wait one week to create 10 seconds sound with the computer. We are the nomad with the portable sound devices.
Wikipedia says: A soundscape is an acoustic environment or an environment created by sound. We are living in the sound of ocean, and in our everyday situation, the background sound is the huge pool of information even though we don't realize the existence. Murray Schafer wrote "The tuning of the world" in 1977 and established the basic concept of soundscape. The book is still strong and eye opening. However, it is true that many technological and environmental changes have happened in these 30 years.
The environment of a big city is filled with many artificial things - the modern skyscrapers, the big LCD screens, the hum noise of air conditioner, and the invisible radio frequencies. In "The tuning of the world", the noise is dealing with the problematic matter. However, for me who grew up in the city, all of the environments are the new ecology. All of them are something like trees or volcano or mountain or solar light. They might give some bad effect for my body, but we have to coexist with them. We can't back to the life without electricity any more. Also the birth of the portable sound devices -the laptop, the mobile phone, the walkman, and ipod - changed the soundscape. As the result, the soundscape is more closed and fragmented than before.

It's not my purpose to object his idea: what I try to do is to indicate one view point and to live the story of our era.

Implementation
I believe that the changes of sound environment can cultivate the possibility of the new way of making or enjoying music. For example, in the traditional stage performance setting, the border between the artist and the audience is clear. In many cases, audiences watch the show in the fixed time and space. My interest is how to deconstruct the performance setting as the more interactive way and the place where the border between the performer and the audiences becomes more blur.
I believe that the future soundscape is opened as the chaotic acoustic pool. From there, many sonic information flows are dynamically moving and exchanging. I believe that the future soundscape is expanded by the sensor technology which changes the inaudible data to the audible signal. In my thesis, I try to add the new view point about the soundscape with the work using the mobile phone and/or network technology.

References
"The tuning of the world" by Murray Schafer (1977) is the classic important book of soundscape. Lalya Gaye's work, "sonic city" is a "mobile electronic music making with the city as interface." She is also the core member of the mobile music workshop. nice huge link on her site.

"Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City" by William J. Mitchell gives many inspiration about the relationship between body and the invisible digital landscape.
Miki Yui's "ask01" and "ask02" are dealing with the issue related body and sound environment.

David Toop's books - "Sonic Boom," "The Ocean of Sound" and "Haunted Weather"- consider deeply about the relationship of the ambience music, pop culture, sound art and the environmental sound. Jonathan Sterne's "The Audible Past" explores the cultural origins of sound reproduction. The amazon list by Douglas Kahn, the author of "Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts" and "Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio and Avant-Garde," is the good start point of reading materials.