Instruments for New Music: Sound, Technology, and Modernism

"Earth Sound Earth Signal is a mind-expanding, ear-opening book, at once a history of electromagnetism in the arts and a provocation to rethink the relationship between media and nature. With erudition and wit, Kahn tells the stories of artists, scientists, and engineers who have made audible the way our planet buzzes, crackles, hums, and whistles, from the ionosphere to the deepest depths of the oceans. The result is a strikingly original work about sound, aesthetics, politics, and the envinronment, from Henry David Thoreau to the Cold War to the age of global warming. It will haunt youand#151;in a good wayand#151;long after you read it." and#151;David Suisman, author of Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music

"Douglas Kahn's Earth Sound Earth Signal delivers a dazzlingly innovative study of how avant-garde music and art have made the planet itself audible over the last 200 years: the soil, the air, the atmosphere, electromagnetic radiation, and wireless communications become objects of playful scientific inquiry and aesthetic enjoyment in works from Henry David Thoreau to Alvin Lucier, John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Robert Barry, and Joyce Hinterding. Earth Sound Earth Signal unfolds new histories of communication, of technology, of science, and of experimental aesthetics in a unique fusion of sharp-eyed scholarship with manifesto-style punch lines. At stake is not just aesthetics or history, but a new idea of planetary nature: Earth perceived through global and local waves, radiations, and energy flows that humans cannnot see but that become audible through media from rocks and winds to electronic circuitry. At a time when older notions of nature no longer grasp the new global technonatures and biocultures of the twenty-first century, Kahn's brilliantly insightful manifesto of 'Aelectrosonics' makes nature resonate anew in an entirely different key and at a different scale: It shows how Earth sings and the atmosphere makes music. This planetary techno-music is a must-hear for anyone interested in experimental aesthetics, environmentalism, or globalization." and#151;Ursula K. Heise, author of Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global

"It is rare that the history of the arts and techno-sciences are so successfully blended as in Douglas Kahn's magisterial survey of how the perception of natural electromagnetic phenomena entered the scientific, artistic and popular imagination. Kahn documents the inquiries of Thomas Watson, Thoreau, scientists and amateurs in the 19th and 20th centuries and moves on to Alvin Lucier, John Cage and contemporary composers and scientific inquiry. This is a fundamental text for all collaborations between the arts and sciences today." and#151;Roger Malina, Professor of Art and Technology and Professor Of Physics, University of Texas at Dallas

"A fascinating tour through previously untold episodes in media arts history. From its theoretical moves to 'think energy' and attend to its lively presence in communications and the arts, to its fresh historical detail on experimental works by artists such as Alvin Lucier and Pauline Oliveros, Earth Sound Earth Signal should appeal broadly to scholars, artists, and enthusiasts of media and sound." and#151;Tara Rodgers, composer and author of Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound

and#160;

and#8220;Collects Schaefferand#8217;s journals and other writings about his musique concrete, which he created by manipulating recorded sounds.and#8221;

and#8220;One of the postwar perand#236;odand#8217;s most significant (and readable) grapplings with new artistic paradigms.and#8221;

and#8220;Completely changed how I hear the world and, after more than 30 years, I am still living with the consequences.and#8221;

and#8220;One striking impression that emerges from reading this book is that [Schaefferand#8217;s] work merits a perspective with greater nuance.and#8221;

and#8220;Captures these uneven rhythms of intuition and perplexity, and his imagination and wit.and#8221;

and#8220;Recommended.and#8221;

"Another unmissable text in sound art research."

"In the spirit of the project, a review of it could simply read (to paraphrase a portmanteau word made up by Futurist Giacomo Balla in 1920): Chessa splendidwavesintonednoiseswordsluminousssss!"

and#8220;The most comprehensive source of Russolo available in English.and#8221;

and#8220;Reconciles Russoloand#8217;s artistic temperament, spiritual awakenings, and philosophical entanglements.and#8221;

and#8220;Luciano Chessa reconstructs Russoloand#8217;s life through ambitious archival research, uncovering . . . how the artistand#8217;s eccentric interests influenced his creative output.and#8221;

and#8220;Dyson seamlessly integrates theoretical perspectives with the history of technological developments in this thought-provoking work for scholars and practitioners.and#8221;

and#8220;An informative book on the still developing role between new media, consumer, and creator.and#8221;

and#8220;Sophisticated and . . . ambitious. . . . Dysonand#8217;s skillful, erudite excavations of rhetorical and conceptual structures bring many benefits.and#8221;

and#8220;A stimulating read. . . . Dyson engages with an impressive range of perspectives. She contributes valuably to contemporary music scholarship.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press s new open access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.
Player pianos, radio-electric circuits, gramophone records, and optical sound film these were the cutting-edge acoustic technologies of the early twentieth century, and for many musicians and artists of the time, these devices were also the implements of a musical revolution. Instruments for New Music traces a diffuse network of cultural agents who shared the belief that a truly modern music could be attained only through a radical challenge to the technological foundations of the art. Centered in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s, the movement to create new instruments encompassed a broad spectrum of experiments, from the exploration of microtonal tunings and exotic tone colors to the ability to compose directly for automatic musical machines. This movement comprised composers, inventors, and visual artists, including Paul Hindemith, Ernst Toch, Jorg Mager, Friedrich Trautwein, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Walter Ruttmann, and Oskar Fischinger. Patteson s fascinating study combines an artifact-oriented history of new music in the early twentieth century with an astute revisiting of still-relevant debates about the relationship between technology and the arts.
"

Mainframe Experimentalism challenges the conventional wisdom that the digital arts arose out of Silicon Valleyand#8217;s technological revolutions in the 1970s. In fact, in the 1960s, a diverse array of artists, musicians, poets, writers, and filmmakers around the world were engaging with mainframe and mini-computers to create innovative new artworks that contradict the stereotypes of "computer art." Juxtaposing the original works alongside scholarly contributions by well-established and emerging scholars from several disciplines, Mainframe Experimentalism demonstrates that the radical and experimental aesthetics and political and cultural engagements of early digital art stand as precursors for the mobility among technological platforms, artistic forms, and social sites that has become commonplace today.

and#147;The computer may now be seen as a and#145;universal machine,and#8217; but this has not always been the case. This substantial collection of essays and documents shows how artists, poets, musicians, filmmakers and other experimenters first discovered the computer, and began using it as their tool and medium. Mainframe Experimentalism is essential reading for anyone who wants to penetrate behind superficial clichand#233;s about digital art and culture.and#8221;and#151;Erkki Huhtamo, author of Illusions in Motion: A Media Archaeology of the Moving Panorama and Related Spectacles.

and#147;Higginsand#8217; and Kahnand#8217;s anthology is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the impact of computer technology on creative production in the arts and literature in the 1960s and beyond. This superb collection presents the first truly international examination of this subject, demonstrating the fascinating collaborations and interchanges that occurred as artists, poets, musicians, and filmmakers explored the potential for new, impersonal forms of expression offered by and#145;mainframe experimentalism.and#8217; Here is the prehistory of the digital arts of today in a volume that is equally essential to the histories of the individual fields involved as well as to scholarship on art and technology in general.and#8221;and#151;Linda Dalrymple Henderson, author of Duchamp in Context: Science and Technology in the Large Glass and Related Works.

Pierre Schaefferand#8217;s In Search of a Concrete Music (and#192; la recherche dand#8217;une musique concrand#232;te) has long been considered a classic text in electroacoustic music and sound recording. Now Schaefferand#8217;s pioneering workand#151;at once a journal of his experiments in sound composition and a treatise on the raison dand#8217;and#234;tre of and#147;concrete musicand#8221;and#151;is available for the first time in English translation. Schaefferand#8217;s theories have had a profound influence on composers working with technology. However, they extend beyond the confines of the studio and are applicable to many areas of contemporary musical thought, such as defining an and#145;instrumentand#8217; and classifying sounds. Schaeffer has also become increasingly relevant to DJs and hip-hop producers as well as sound-based media artists. This unique book is essential for anyone interested in contemporary musicology or media history.

"Few books have described with such precision the evolution of thoughts and concepts behind the invention of a new music as A La Recherche dand#8217;une Musique Concrete. In this book Schaeffer has unveiled the major philosophical problems of music of the second half of the twentieth century. An excellent translation by Dack and North." and#151;Daniel Teruggi, Head of Institut National Audiovisuel, Groupe de Recherches Musicales, Paris

and#147;A fascinating glimpse into the mind of Pierre Schaeffer, the creator of the very first kind of electroacoustic music, the Concrete music, here in a stellar translation. In this diary combined with musical considerations, Schaeffer gives the necessary keys and invites the reader to follow, step by step, how Concrete music became a major trend of the twentieth century." and#151;Marc Battier, Professor of Musicology, University Paris-Sorbonne

and#147;Pierre Schaefferand#8217;s writings are fundamental to our understanding of twentieth-century music in general and all the sound arts that use technology. This book reveals a truly experimental journey with its detours and frustrationsand#151;yet with determination, dazzling imagination and insight, Schaeffer pieces together a coherent and radical theory of music made through sound as perceived. Christine North and John Dackand#8217;s translation brilliantly captures Schaefferand#8217;s painstaking reinvention of the vocabulary of music.and#8221; and#151;Simon Emmerson, Professor of Music, Technology, and Innovation, De Montfort University

At publication date, a free ebook version of this title will be available through Luminos, University of California Pressandrsquo; new Open Access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

Player pianos, radio-electric circuits, gramophone records, and optical sound filmandmdash;these were the cutting-edge acoustic technologies of the early twentieth century, and for many musicians and artists of the time, these devices were also the implements of a musical revolution. Instruments for New Music traces a diffuse network of cultural agents who shared the belief that a truly modern music could be attained only through a radical challenge to the technological foundations of the art. Centered in Germany during the 1920s and and#39;30s, the movement for new instruments encompassed a broad spectrum of aesthetic orientations, from the exploration of microtonal tunings and exotic tone-colors to the ability to compose directly for automatic musical machines. It involved composers, inventors, and visual artists, including Paul Hindemith, Ernst Toch, Jandouml;rg Mager, Friedrich Trautwein, Landaacute;szlandoacute; Moholy-Nagy, Walter Ruttmann, and Oskar Fischinger. Pattesonandrsquo;s fascinating study combines an artifact-oriented history of new music in the early twentieth century with an astute revisiting of still-relevant debates about the relationship between technology and the arts.

Earth Sound Earth Signal is a study of energies in aesthetics and the arts, from the birth of modern communications in the nineteenth century to the global transmissions of the present day. Douglas Kahn begins by evoking the Aeolian sphere music that Henry David Thoreau heard blowing along telegraph lines and the Aelectrosonic sounds of natural radio that Thomas Watson heard through the first telephone; he then traces the histories of science, media, music, and the arts to the 1960s and beyond. Earth Sound Earth Signal rethinks energy at a global scale, from brainwaves to outer space, through detailed discussions of musicians, artists and scientists such as Alvin Lucier, Edmond Dewan, Pauline Oliveros, John Cage, James Turrell, Robert Barry, Joyce Hinterding, and many others.

Luigi Russolo (1885and#150;1947)and#151;painter, composer, builder of musical instruments, and first-hour member of the Italian Futurist movementand#151;was a crucial figure in the evolution of twentieth-century aesthetics. As creator of the first systematic poetics of noise and inventor of what has been considered the first mechanical sound synthesizer, Russolo looms large in the development of twentieth-century music. In the first English language study of Russolo, Luciano Chessa emphasizes the futuristand#8217;s interest in the occult, showing it to be a leitmotif for his life and a foundation for his art of noises. Chessa shows that Russoloand#8217;s aesthetics of noise, and the machines he called the intonarumori, were intended to boost practitioners into higher states of spiritual consciousness. His analysis reveals a multifaceted man in whom the drive to keep up with the latest scientific trends coexisted with an embrace of the irrational, and a critique of materialism and positivism.

and#147;Luigi Russolo is increasingly being recognized as an important figure in 20th century art and music, and his work deserves to be better understood. Chessaand#8217;s archival research and readings of esoteric or otherwise little-known texts are impressive, and he offers a convincing account of the influence of the occult on Russolo and the Futurists in general. This book alters our conception of Russolo, Futurism, and the early artistic avant-garde.and#8221;and#151;Christoph Cox, Hampshire College

and#147;This book is timely, and merits the attention of a wider audience. Luigi Russolo, futurista makes a compelling argument that radically revises our views on a major creative figure of the twentieth century. Luciano Chessa provides vast amounts of information on the ideas and trends that influenced the Futurists, and offers a wealth of insight and observations that point the way for further research on avant-garde music and art in the twentieth century.and#8221;and#151;Paul DeMarinis, Department of Art and Art History, Stanford University

Sounding New Media examines the long-neglected role of sound and audio in the development of new media theory and practice, including new technologies and performance art events, with particular emphasis on sound, embodiment, art, and technological interactions. Frances Dyson takes an historical approach, focusing on technologies that became available in the mid-twentieth century-electronics, imaging, and digital and computer processing-and analyzing the work of such artists as John Cage, Edgard Varand#232;se, Antonin Artaud, and Char Davies. She utilizes sound's intangibility to study ideas about embodiment (or its lack) in art and technology as well as fears about technology and the so-called "post-human." Dyson argues that the concept of "immersion" has become a path leading away from aesthetic questions about meaning and toward questions about embodiment and the physical. The result is an insightful journey through the new technologies derived from electronics, imaging, and digital and computer processing, toward the creation of an aesthetic and philosophical framework for considering the least material element of an artwork, sound.

"Dyson takes on both the paucity of commentary on sound in new media arts, and the centrality of sound metaphors in talk about new media. Immersion comes into the language from musicology and music criticism, and Dyson does a great job of tracing its gradual integration, in various forms, into the rhetoric of new media since the 1960s."and#151;Sean Cubitt, University of Melbourne

"Look no further for a wonderfully rich study of the strange new materialities opened up by radical developments in sound technology."and#151;Timothy Morton, author of Ecology without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics

andldquo;The smartest book on the German roots of the music and media arts that happened once electricity joined sound to make music. With the advent of these innovative art forms, new technological possibilities were hacked, and recordings stopped repeating themselves and performed something new.andrdquo;andmdash;Douglas Kahn, author of Earth Sound Earth Signal: Energies and Earth Magnitude in the Arts

and#160;

andldquo;Instruments for New Music is a fascinating story of the technological music instrumentarium that not only gives composers and improvisers new sounds and new ways to play but also engages all of us in new social and philosophical insights.andrdquo;andmdash;Pauline Oliveros, Composer and Professor of Practice,and#160;Department of the Arts, Rensselaer Polytechnic Instituteand#160;

and#160;

andldquo;Every so often a book comes along with something new to say about a familiar topic. Through meticulous new research on electronic music in Germany during the Weimar Republic, Thomas Patteson recovers the forgotten history of the music. He provides the most detailed account we have of how electronic music became tainted by the Nazis and how Stockhausen rewrote its history in his Cologne studio. Incredible instruments were developed during this early periodandmdash;not least the trautonium used by Hitchcock to make the scary sounds of The Birds! This book shows how todayandrsquo;s sounds were born long before the age of electronics.andrdquo;andmdash;Trevor Pinch, author of Analog Days: The History and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer

Composer Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1995) was the inventor of musique concrand#232;te music created by combining and manipulating recorded sounds (rather than being played on conventional musical instruments).

Translators:

John Dack is Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Sonic Arts Department at Middlesex University. Christine North is retired as Lecturer in French at Middlesex University.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Hannah B Higgins and Douglas Kahn

Part I. Discourses

1. The Soulless Usurper: Reception and Criticism of Early Computer Art

Grant Taylor

2. Georges Perecand#8217;s Thinking Machines

David Bellos

3. In Forming Software: Software, Structuralism, Dematerialization

Edward A. Shanken

Part II. Centers

4. Information Aesthetics and the Stuttgart School

Christoph Kland#252;tsch

5. and#147;They Have All Dreamt of the Machinesand#151;and Now the Machines Have Arrivedand#8221;: New Tendenciesand#151;Computers and Visual Research, Zagreb, 1968and#150;1969

Margit Rosen

6. Minicomputer Experimentalism in the United Kingdom from the 1950s to 1980

Charlie Gere

Part III. Music

7. James Tenney at Bell Labs

Douglas Kahn

8. HPSCHDand#151;Ghost or Monster?

Branden W. Joseph

9. The Alien Voice: Alvin Lucierand#8217;s North American Time Capsule 1967

Christoph Cox

10. An Introduction to North American Time Capsule 1967

Robert A. Moog

11. North American Time Capsule 1967

Alvin Lucier

Part IV. Art and Intermedia

12. An Introduction to Alison Knowlesand#8217;s The House of Dust

Hannah B Higgins

13. The Book of the Future: Alison Knowlesand#8217;s The House of Dust

Benjamin H.{ths}D. Buchloh

14. Three Early Texts by Gustav Metzger on Computer Art

Compiled by Simon Ford

15. Computer Participator: Situating Nam June Paikand#8217;s Work in Computing

William Kaizen

Part V. Poetry

16. First-Generation Poetry Generators: Establishing Foundations in Form

Christopher Funkhouser

17. and#147;Tape Mark Iand#8221;

Nanni Balestrini

18. Letter to Ann Noand#235;l

Emmett Williams

19. The Computational Word Works of Eric Andersen and Dick Higgins

Hannah B Higgins

20. Opus 1966

Eric Andersen

21. and#147;Computers for the Artsand#8221; (May 1968)

Dick Higgins

22. The Role of the Machine in the Experiment of Egoless Poetry: Jackson Mac Low and the Programmable Film Reader

Mordecai-Mark Mac Low

Part VI. Film and Animation

23. Stan VanDerBeekand#8217;s Poemfields: The Interstice of Cinema and Computing

Gloria Sutton

24. From the Gun Controller to the Mandala: The Cybernetic Cinema of John and James Whitney

Zabet Patterson

Index