RE: [microsound] Money/Mouth - PERFORMING LIVE

[Christopher Sorg <csorg@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> No I am really confused. If acousmatic means "hidden from view", and I am
> playing audio from a laptop behind people in an audience who are watching
> some video on a screen, and the audio lacks any sort of sign/signifier
> connection, then how is it NOT acousmatic?
>
> Sorry for the apparent density in my neural tissues... after all I am just
> an anti-intellectual American.

I'm sorry, that is correct.  It *is* an acousmatic performance.  Temporary
insanity.  For some reason I was thinking that the visuals being present
mean the performance isn't presented as acousmatic.  I suppose if you look
at Pythagoras' original intention in presenting his lectures acousmatically,
that could be true.  The source was a distraction, which I took to mean that
the *visual* was a distraction.  Staring at a blank screen is certainly
different from staring at a video projection.

However, that doesn't seem to be how the contemporary term "acousmatic" is
used.  It depends on how you define the laptop (which was one of my original
questions).  If a laptop can be considered the source, then it is visualized
sound, i.e. you can see the cause of the sound.  Even if you're in the back
of the room, the source can be seen.  However, if you consider a laptop to
be more like a radio or telephone, then the "instrument" is acousmatic.  I
think the question of whether a laptop is an emitter or not is an
interesting one.  It can serve as the emitter or it can replay other
emitters.  I suppose it just depends on how you use it.

It's a difficult concept that I'm struggling with as well and certainly, as
all language and definitions are, subject to flux and change.

What do you think?  Rather than get stuck in the old Greek use of the term,
here's a more contemporary use, from
http://www.filmsound.org/chion/acous.htm:

Acousmatic sound
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Acousmatic sound is sound one hears without seeing their originating cause -
a invisible sound source. Radio, phonograph and telephone, all which
transmit sounds without showing their emitter are acousmatic media

Offscreen sound in film is sound that is acousmatic, relative to what is
shown in the shot. In a film an acousmatic situation can develop along two
different scenarios: either a sound is visualised first, and subsequently
acousmatized, or it is a acousmatic to start with, and is visualized only
afterward.

The first cause associates a sound with a precise image from the outset.
This Image can the reappear in the audience mind each time the sound is
heard off screen
The second case, common to moody mystery films, keeps the sound´s cause a
secret before revealing all. (De-acousmatization)

Opposite of Acousmatic sound is Visualized sound - a sound accompanied by
the sight of its source or cause. In film a onscreen sound whose source
appears in the image, and belongs to the reality represented therein
(Edited excerpt: Michel Chion, Audio-Vision)

Isn't "anti-intellectual American" an oxymoron?  And ain't we just much more
proud to be ignorant? :)
__________________________________________
Christopher Sorg
Multimedia Artist and Instructor
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
http://csorg.cjb.net
csorg@xxxxxxxxx