WEEK EIGHT: THIS ROOM WHERE TIME PASSES

 In 1969 composer Alvin Lucier sat in a room in Middletown Connecticut and recorded himself speaking a short text into a microphone. He then played the recording back into the room,  and re-recorded it. The new recording was then played back and re-recorded, and this process was continually repeated. Eventually <insert duration here>  the words become unintelligible, replaced by the pure resonant harmonies and tones of the room itself. All rooms have a characteristic acoustic resonance based on many factors including but not limited to shape and size, & certain frequencies will be emphasized as they resonate in the room.   His text is a description of  this process in action—"I am sitting in a room, different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice."

Here is a 1981 recording of  Lucier's I AM SITTING IN A ROOM , but as Lucier is careful to instruct us, this experiment can be performed in any room, with any text, and using any kind of technology. After learning about and listening to the piece  in class, we brainstormed & collectively tried to figure out how we might recreate his experiment in our room. Here are some of the raw results using our smartphones voice memo apps!!! <because we are geniuses, ahem>

11:46 AM

12:13 pm

Speaking of listening, on Thursday we watched several tapes including BOOMERANG, a videotape made in a tv studio in Amarillo Texas in 1974. In Boomerang, Richard Serra trains the camera on Nancy Holt, who, as she speaks, hears her own voice played back, with just a slight delay, through a pair of headphones. Holt describes her experience as it occurs, becoming both the subject and the object of her observation. The spectacle Serra conveys is that of a woman transformed into an image before her very eyes (or ears—in this case) . Boomerang begins to question the effect on human consciousness of living in a world in which reality can be instantly transformed into an image—and not the “natural” image found in a mirror, but the media-inflected image found on a TV monitor.

BOOMERANG (1974) Richard Serra, with Nancy Holt

additional viewing: 

Gary Hill, Soundings 1978

Joan Jonas, Vertical Roll 1972