Sonic Art & Sound Design- P12 pot

p55 2 nd (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/24/07 5:54 AM Page 55 p55 2 QC Preflight Point 2 nd 1111 Job no : 76098 Title : The Fundamentals Of Sonic Art Client : AVA Scn : # 150 Size : 200(w)230(h)mm Co : M11 C0 (All To Spot)(Coagl) Dept : DTP D/O : 16.02.07 (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/24/07 5:54 AM Page 55 5554 p55 2 nd (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) JANEK SCHAEFER Interview How would you describe your work? I’m a sound artist. My work encompasses anything that uses sound usually combined with objects, space, visual art and has a close relationship with context. Do you see it fitting into an existing category or being on its own? My work isn’t just about sound: it’s about telling stories and about the world around us, doing installations etc. I don’t just release it on CD for people to listen to on headphones – it dabbles in the visual arts so that half the time I’m a musician and half the time I’m an artist, but mostly both together. So I combine categories, and follow all those that come before me. I am comfortable being labelled as a ‘Sound Artist’. Does this imply different mindsets depending upon the project in question? I have developed an overall approach as to how I tackle a commission or an idea. I divide my work into ‘Head’ and ‘Heart’, my head being concepts and heart being emotions. I try to balance the two depending on the project. I’m currently working on a piece for CD called All Bombing is Terrorism . I want the track to be the opposite of terror, which is often a mental state. The music is purely a peaceful and calm opposition to war. There’s a concept in there, where the emotional focus is flipped as a reaction to the context. So the head and the heart are constantly vying for attention in my work. The important thing is trying to engineer what I want the end user to understand, to experience. If I’m doing an installation, I’m thinking practically about my plugs and sockets and budgets, but in that space, do I want them to be scared or do I want them to think about the idea, or do I want them to feel happy and warm and to love life? How important is it that you understand the concept or how important is it that you just really enjoy it without having to think about it too much? I work from what I want them to receive as an experience. Ideally it should work on both levels depending on how deep you delve into the project. Do you think that’s something to do with having an architectural background? Yes, I think it really is. When I started my architecture degree, I got my first ever A grade for my first project, because I was encouraged to do things off my own back, not just repeat things as in school. In architecture, we get set a brief, which is a situation that we have to resolve, and there are a million things that are involved 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/24/07 5:54 AM Page 55 p55 2 nd (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/24/07 5:54 AM Page 55 ARTISTS AND THEIR MUSIC p56 2 nd (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/24/07 5:55 AM Page 56 p56 2 nd (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/24/07 5:55 AM Page 56 p56 2 nd (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/24/07 5:55 AM Page 56 p56 QC Preflight Point 2 nd 1111 Job no : 76098 Title : The Fundamentals Of Sonic Art Client : AVA Scn : # 150 Size : 200(w)230(h)mm Co : M11 C0 (All To Spot)(Coagl) Dept : DTP D/O : 16.02.07 (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/24/07 5:55 AM Page 56 p57 2 nd (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/24/07 5:55 AM Page 57 p57 2 QC Preflight Point 2 nd 1111 Job no : 76098 Title : The Fundamentals Of Sonic Art Client : AVA Scn : # 150 Size : 200(w)230(h)mm Co : M11 C0 (All To Spot)(Coagl) Dept : DTP D/O : 16.02.07 (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/24/07 5:55 AM Page 57 5756 p57 2 nd (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) Left: Janek Schaefer performing live Janek Schaefer often performs using his self-built/invented record players combined with objects, space and visual art. Image courtesy of Janek Schaefer. in solving it, and that’s how I do all my projects – they are ‘briefs’ to me. I don’t for example sit down and make music for leisure: I only do it when I’ve got a deadline and I’ve got a reason to make it. All Bombing is Terrorism has taken me two years of collecting one type of loop pedal but I hadn’t plugged them all together until someone said, ‘I want you to do this track’ and I made it about the continuous cycles of war – the historical loop. It gave me a reason to finally use the five loop pedals. How did the Triphonic Turntable come about? I came up with it because I went to see a concert by Philip Jeck, who was performing at the RCA one afternoon alongside Chris Watson who gave a lecture on field recording, and Panasonic who were creating raw, electrical, rhythmic music. Philip showed a piece called Vinyl Requiem with 180 record players, all playing at once – a cacophony kind of orchestra. I was trying to make music at the time using rhythm boxes and things because I was into techno and electronica and DJ-ing in the Art Bar I helped build at the RCA. I made a little cassette album with this all-in-one Roland MC-303 Groove Box, and at the end of it I’d used all the sounds I liked – so I was looking for more flexible and cheaper options to generate sound. I then realised that vinyl is the most physical way that you can manipulate sound: it’s tactile, it’s hands-on, you can access it all at once, easily.You can slow it down, break it, melt it: it’s really tangible – it’s just bumps in a surface you can play with a finger nail. So I thought there are LPs and 7”s of every type of sound possible just lying dormant for 10p in shops all around the world and I thought, ‘I’ll do the opposite of Philip’. I didn’t fancy having to drive a van with 180 turntables around the world like Philip, to try and start my career: I’ll build one record player which has got lots of record players in one unit and you can change the sound as much as you can all the way from 1.5 to 77.5rpm. It goes backwards or forwards and you can play up to three discs at the same time. It’s a very visual idea as well – people look at it and they go ‘A three-armed record player – what does that sound like?’ So you put it on a postcard and send it out to other people who promote gigs, then some of them write back and you start travelling and meeting other like-minded people and I started my career. From the first gig I did, I got a record deal, then started being invited around the world and I make a living from it now full time (as well as being a full time ManMum). JANEK SCHAEFER 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/24/07 5:55 AM Page 57 p57 2 nd (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/24/07 5:55 AM Page 57 ARTISTS AND THEIR WORK p58 2 nd (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/24/07 5:55 AM Page 58 p58 2 nd (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/24/07 5:55 AM Page 58 p58 2 nd (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/24/07 5:55 AM Page 58 p58 QC Preflight Point 2 nd 1111 Job no : 76098 Title : The Fundamentals Of Sonic Art Client : AVA Scn : # 150 Size : 200(w)230(h)mm Co : M11 C0 (All To Spot)(Coagl) Dept : DTP D/O : 16.02.07 (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/24/07 5:55 AM Page 58 5958 p59 2 nd (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) JANEK SCHAEFER Left: Performing ‘Skate’ In 2004, Janek Schaefer performed Skate to an audience in Linz, Germany. The original concept was to ‘make a record that usurped the deterministic spiral (and the “anti- skate” mechanism) as a way of playing and listening to sound and vinyl.’ This was done by cutting ‘sound- scars’ on to a disc with a gramophone lathe, which forced the stylus to navigate its own random path across the terrain of the physical/sonic diversions.The LP won an ‘Award of Distinction’ at Prix ARS Electronica. Image courtesy of Janek Schaefer. Right: Performing with the Triphonic Turntable Janek Schaefer frequently performs with his self-designed instrument featuring a three tone arm multi-record, reversible play and vari-speed turntable. Image courtesy of Janek Schaefer. 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/26/07 4:20 PM Page 59 p59 2 nd (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/26/07 4:20 PM Page 59 p59 2 nd (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/26/07 4:20 PM Page 59 p59 2 QC Preflight Point 2 nd 1111 Job no : 76098 Title : The Fundamentals Of Sonic Art Client : AVA Scn : # 150 Size : 200(w)230(h)mm Co : M11 C0 (All To Spot)(Coagl) Dept : DTP D/O : 16.02.07 (Job no:76098C1D/O : 09.03.07 Co: CM11) 76098_CTP_040-071.qxd 3/26/07 4:20 PM Page 59 . SCHAEFER Interview How would you describe your work? I’m a sound artist. My work encompasses anything that uses sound usually combined with objects, space, visual art and has a close relationship with context. Do. Point 2 nd 1111 Job no : 76098 Title : The Fundamentals Of Sonic Art Client : AVA Scn : # 150 Size : 200(w)230(h)mm Co : M11 C0 (All To Spot)(Coagl) Dept : DTP D/O : 16.02.07 (Job no:76098C1D/O. and half the time I’m an artist, but mostly both together. So I combine categories, and follow all those that come before me. I am comfortable being labelled as a Sound Artist’. Does this imply