Sonic Loophole Generator and Disco LED Hack
For me these two pieces represent something that I believe not only about sound but also about art in general, they embody the idea that anyone can do art, and no matter the tools or equipment everyone can and should. To start off with the disco led hack is such an exciting experiment and it truly shows that sound art exists everywhere and that even if unheard for a majority of the time, all it takes is for it to be listened to in the right way. I find this idea of the simplest things emitting some kind of performance, even if unintentional from the creator of, say, the LED so incredibly beautiful. It helps break down this idea that art is some kind of impenetrable force that only a select few can do, of course there’s a baseline level of privilege needed, but anyone with the passion for it can do it. It begins to feel quite overwhelming really, how does one approach doing a piece when there are no limits? Does one have to impose their own restrictions to work around? Or does it, as usual, fall onto the limits brought on by capitalism (eg. access to materials and equipment)
A lot can be learned about the values of capitalist culture by critically investigating the materiality of the machines, processes and practices of technology that consumer society throws away.
Darsha. (2020). Darsha. [online] Available at: http://darsha.org/about/ [Accessed 1 Nov. 2020].
I suppose then that is the point of works like the disco LED hack, items that are cheap and easily thrown away will be used to make art, things are given new worth when used for artistic purposes, for example something like sirens:
Which uses “found objects, and an audio composition [and] used motor hoods from the Trolli 35 lawnmower. The Trolli was one of the standard lawn mowers made and used in the former German Democratic Republic.” (Darsha, 2018) This is a prime example, it stands in the face of capitalism and it’s insistence on constant progression and development, forcing us to leave behind the obsolete in favour of the new, here we see a defiance of this, finding a use for what the system insists is useless.
The sonic loophole generator has a similar feeling, but for me has a stronger sense of that freedom to create, it actively encourages the viewer to try it themselves, it’s so easy but produces such wonderful effects. It follows a similar idea of disco LED hack, using everyday objects to create art. It feels though that the lack of control over the feedback loop created kind of means that it is harder for the artist to put themselves into what they create, the unpredictability of doing this, while fun, is also a barrier to being represented by what is created.
I feel that this particular piece was one I should try to recreate, trying to remain in the spirit of the artwork which encourages the viewer to try this themselves
Attempting a response
Not a lot of effort was involved to do this response and so I decided to film me actually doing it as it didn’t take long and I feel that the actual doing was part of the piece and not just the end result, so I set up my H1 borrowed a friends phone and called her, from there I just experimented with different stimuli for the feedback and moving the phone around to achieve different effects and in some cases stop it all together, I feel I was wrong when I wrote about the lack of control being a barrier to full representation, in actually doing it I felt I had quite a bit of control, more so then when I make a sound with a DAW as I was physically moving things about with my hands and that had a direct and predictable effect, admittedly the variety of things I could do with this control was limited but the feeling was a refreshing one. I think this lines up with my philosophy that art should be accessible and that everyone should do it, this is a relatively simple and interesting experiment that I feel imparts a good sense of control over what the artist is doing in the moment.