Studio Enzo

Abstract

This paper delves into the author’s sound installation work, “Sensation and Discovery: Playground of Eight Sounds (2022).” This personal artistic endeavor transcends traditional recording techniques, focusing on immersive sound environments derived from the essential ‘thingness’ of various objects. The composition of the author’s work is divided into two main elements. The first involves the meticulous creation of sound objects based on the physical properties of traditional Korean materials: metal, stone, thread, bamboo, gourd, soil, leather, and wood. These materials were not chosen randomly but for their unique acoustic characteristics and cultural resonance, contributing to a multi-layered soundscape.

The second element of the installation involves the careful and thoughtful arrangement of these sound objects within the exhibition space, adhering to the complex layout principles of traditional Korean gardens. This arrangement is not merely about placing objects but orchestrating an interactive and dynamic soundscape. The goal is to propose a unique environment influenced directly by the physicality and arrangement of the objects, transcending traditional auditory experiences.

Through this personal approach, the author’s installation contrasts the subtle and concrete acoustic environments presented through traditional recordings with the primal ‘thingness’ of materials and the personal memories they evoke. This contrast aims to emphasize new methodologies and approaches, where the abstract acoustic environment becomes a canvas for personal interpretation and sensory exploration, challenging the boundaries of sound art and opening new avenues for understanding the interaction of sound with physical space and objects.

1. Research Questions

1.1 How can sound art express the impact of human actions on nature?

This study focuses on the crucial question: “How do human actions impact nature?” Currently, we are witnessing various climate anomalies, with many scientists pointing to human activities as the primary cause of these phenomena. Against this backdrop, this study created a sound installation to explore the impact of everyday human actions on nature. The choice to use sound for expression in this exhibition leverages the temporal characteristics of the medium. Sound artists use recording and playback technologies to capture and replay the continuously changing natural soundscapes, allowing for a sensory experience of the impact of human activities on nature. Similarly, this exhibition aims to contemplate human activities affecting nature through the medium of sound.

1.2 Can sounding objects, revealing material properties, transfer soundscapes to different spaces?

Just as sound artists use recording and playback technologies to present natural soundscapes in different times and spaces, using materials from nature to create ‘sounding objects’ and placing them in exhibition spaces can be an effective way to convey natural soundscapes to different spaces. These ‘sounding objects’ encapsulate the sounds of nature and allow visitors to interact with them, altering and experiencing the soundscape in the exhibition. This process invites visitors to experience the impact of human actions on nature in an artistic way. Such work can draw inspiration from sound artists’ installations exploring the ‘thingness’ of objects, displaying objects themselves or creating devices that use the resonance of objects through electric motors. This approach expands the boundaries of traditional sound art, opening new creative spaces to explore interactions between art, science, nature, and humans. Consequently, this study explores the relationship between humans and nature through sound art, offering a new artistic pathway.

2. Literature Reviews

2.1 Bernie Krause & UVA - The Great Animal Orchestra

The Great Animal Orchestra is an exhibition honoring the achievements of musician, bioacoustician, and scientist Bernie Krause. Over 45 years, he has recorded the sounds of animals, collecting over 5,000 hours of sounds from more than 15,000 species in natural habitats worldwide. Unfortunately, 70% of the animals he recorded have lost their sounds due to human activities. The exhibition space forms an abstract projected landscape using spectrogram-based acoustic analysis of Krause’s soundscapes. The various information visualized on the walls interprets the different locations and times Krause recorded worldwide. A shallow black water pool on the floor reflects data, adding another dimension to the work. It also creates ripples to visualize sound frequencies inaudible to the human ear. This installation envelops visitors, encouraging them to contemplate the living sounds and unique acoustics of each animal within its ecosystem.

2.2 Chris Watson - Weather Report

Chris Watson’s Weather Report clarifies that weather plays a central role in the creation and shaping of all habitats. Clearly, weather profoundly and dynamically affects human and animal lives. The three locations featured in the work have unique moods and characters shaped by natural elements, expressed through time compression. This study records Watson’s first attempt to compose a musical work by directly recording wildlife and their habitats on-site. Previously, he focused on depicting and revealing the characteristic atmospheres of specific places through site-specific, untreated field recordings. In this study, however, he composes an evolving sound collage based on a series of recordings made over various times in specific locations.

In 1968, David Tudor composed a sound score for Merce Cunningham’s dance “Rainforest,” featuring Andy Warhol’s ‘Silver Clouds’ and Jasper Johns’ costumes, inspired by Cunningham’s childhood memories from Olympic National Park in the Pacific Northwest. Tudor’s ‘instrumental speakers’ mimic the sounds of birds and other animals in nature, offering an experience that heightens awareness of natural sound environments and climate change. In 1973, Tudor debuted ‘Rainforest IV’ in Chocorua, New Hampshire, a six-hour performance offering audiences an opportunity to experience environmental aspects through close interaction with nature. This interaction enhances awareness of climate and environmental issues, fostering a greater understanding of the impact of climate change and environmental destruction on humans and nature. Subsequent versions of ‘Rainforest IV’ have been exhibited in various spaces, encouraging visitors to interact with resonating objects, providing a sensory understanding of the impact of human activities on natural sounds. CIE members developed ‘Rainforest V’ in 2009 and included it in the MoMA collection, emphasizing the importance of raising awareness of environmental protection and climate change through art.

3. Artistic Practice

To explore how sound art can express the impact of human actions on nature and whether sounding objects revealing material properties can transfer soundscapes to different spaces, three practical approaches were devised:

• Select characteristic objects that constitute natural soundscapes.

• Create sounding objects that reveal the material properties of the selected objects.

• Implement a plan to arrange the sounding objects in the exhibition space to create a soundscape.

These three methods culminated in the exhibition.

3.1 Process of Selecting Characteristic Objects that Constitute Natural Soundscapes

Traditional Korean music has long emphasized the harmony between nature and humans, classifying instruments by natural materials, known as the Eight Sounds classification in Korean traditional music. The reason for selecting natural materials suggested by the Eight Sounds classification as characteristic objects that constitute natural soundscapes is that traditional music used these natural materials to construct instruments, leveraging their unique resonance. Furthermore, the Eight Sounds classification presented the relationships between instruments based on natural materials, inspiring the use of these materials to create sounding objects.

To realize the natural soundscape, sounding objects were created using materials classified by the Eight Sounds. Some objects were made using a single material, while others incorporated various materials. Additionally, all mechanical devices used in the sounding objects were designed to make the materials’ sounds audible and tactile, utilizing their resonance or friction.

Descriptions of Sounding Objects in the Exhibition :

1. Archetype: The sound object ‘Archetype, 元型 (2022)’ is inspired by the shape of pebbles. The pebbles in the exhibition started as massive rocks, shaped by various pressures. Pebbles, unable to avoid pressure, seem to be in their current form by chance. However, the pebbles finding stability on the endlessly spinning turntable appear as if they belong there inevitably. The work juxtaposes the shape and cracking sound of pebbles with hollow silence to convey awkwardness.

2. Tahyeongo-drum: ‘Tahyeongo-drum, 打絃鼓 (2022)’ results from exploring the Eight Sounds. Over time, we explored the sounds of natural materials by touching and transforming their shapes. The cold resonance of iron spreads the sounds of other materials, wood’s tenacity supports and channels the sounds, and leather’s elasticity embraces and warms all the sounds. Visitors are encouraged to touch and compose the exhibition’s sounds with the Tahyeongo-drum.

3. Jar: Jars have long been used for storage, preserving food for our tables and sometimes even valuables. Perhaps jars were made for storage. However, today, jars have yielded their storage role to refrigerators and safes. Can jars still be considered jars? Although visually empty, jars still contain something. Listen to the sounds the jar once held through headphones and experience the concept of wu-wei (non-action).

4. Bamboo, Gourd, Leather: Most sensations we experience are from artificial materials. The glass screen of a smartphone against our cheek while exchanging opinions, the plastic keycaps we touch while writing. Despite focusing on natural materials, we communicate through artificial ones. Therefore, time was needed to become familiar with natural materials. To hear their sounds, I cut, drilled, rolled, and turned them. Here, the time spent exploring their sounds is brought to the exhibition with the materials.

3.3 Arrangement of Sounding Objects Following Korean Traditional Garden Principles

After creating sounding objects using natural materials classified by the Eight Sounds, consideration was given to effectively arranging them in the exhibition space. Given that traditional Korean music and garden principles emphasize viewing and integrating nature as it is, the traditional method of sensing nature was also explored. Traditional Korean gardens, characterized by viewing and integrating nature in its original form, avoid transplanting trees or manipulating watercourses, using nature as it is to form gardens. This characteristic invites people into nature, reflecting the traditional attitude towards nature found in the Eight Sounds classification in traditional Korean music. The arrangement of sounding objects in the exhibition follows this principle, aiming to harmonize nature and human life.

Korean traditional gardens avoid transplanting trees or manipulating watercourses, using nature as it is. This practice forms a unique garden grammar, inviting people into nature, similar to the traditional approach found in the Eight Sounds classification. Adopting this grammar, the sounding objects were arranged as shown in the illustration.

4. Reflection

The exhibition focuses on the fundamental question: “How do human actions impact nature through sound art?” It explores the relationship between the material properties of objects that constitute nature and sound art. This exhibition is the result of deep research and exploration of natural materials, traditional Korean music, traditional gardens, and the interaction between humans and nature. My interest in the powerful expressive tools of sound art—recording and playback—was sparked by analyzing sound art works addressing climate change.

Sound artists use recording and playback to capture fragments of evolving ecosystems, processing these into sound sources, collaborating with visual artists to present them with visual elements, or employing various sound-emitting devices to allow experiences of recorded sounds in different environments. Through this observation, I aimed to bring not just recordings of natural soundscapes but also the objects that constitute those soundscapes into the exhibition space, creating a new approach to conveying soundscapes. This approach is one of the diverse methods of expression within sound art, classified as sound installation. Artists like Zimoun, Bernhard Leitner, and Tarek Atoui explore the sound and interactions of objects with their installations. However, their work often focuses on single materials, limiting the full recreation of the harmonious soundscape of nature’s diverse sounds.

From this perspective, I sought new meaning between the works of sound artists who use recording and playback to bring natural soundscapes and those who exhibit sounds through the material properties of objects. The goal was to recreate natural soundscapes using the unique resonance and sounds of natural materials. Inspired by traditional Korean music, I researched the methods of producing sounds using natural materials referenced in traditional Korean musical instruments. Based on advice from curator Hyeon-hee Jeong from the National Gugak Center, I created Sounding Objects resembling traditional drums, composing the soundscape with six Sounding Objects.

All Sounding Objects in the exhibition were designed for visitors to manipulate, symbolically expressing the impact of human actions on nature. Visitors experienced the changing soundscape by interacting with the objects, sensing how their actions influenced the sound. However, many visitors focused on the tactile aspect, often missing the sound changes. This symbolizes how the impact of our actions on nature is subtle and gradual, easily overlooked if not closely observed. The exhibition aimed to discuss the influence of our actions on nature, sharing this through the invisible medium of sound with the visitors.

Investigating Human Influence on Sound Environments Generated by Traditional Natural Sounding Objects

Demo Video (Exhibition)

Live Performance