Can Sound be Spaceless?

Greg J. Smith

Sound is inherently tied to space, it traverses. Once you start considering the possibility of a spaceless sound, you are delving into a realm of abstraction. Two types of re-encodings of sound that might be considered aspatial are the conversion of "vibrations moving through the air" to a digital signal and our memory of sonic events.

Sound is inherently tied to space, it traverses. Once you start considering the possibility of a spaceless sound, you are delving into a realm of abstraction. Two types of re-encodings of sound that might be considered aspatial are the conversion of “vibrations moving through the air” to a digital signal and our memory of sonic events. An immediately recognizable example of the first is the MP3, the ubiquitous consumer audio format that utilizes so-called lossy compression to yield small, manageable files, ushering in a new era of immaterial media consumption in the process. The latter re-encoding – that of the memory of sound – brings with it myriad questions of authenticity, nostalgia and ownership. How strongly is a field recording tied to the site where it was collected? Is the relationship between a musical sample and the song from which it was extracted similarly nuanced? This panel ruminated on these and related questions. Mitchell Akiyama brought a measured analysis of the history of recording and the everyday deployment of sound to this discussion. Drawing from the annals of the last century of pop and experimental music, Geeta Dayal described the creation and transmission of sound as a nuanced, ever-evolving process. Extending out of her ongoing interrogation of domestic consumer electronics, Darsha Hewitt spoke to the character of media formats and the physics that underpin sound as a qualitatively experienced phenomenon. While the format specifications (or even data storage footprint) associated with the MP3 and the ethics of sampling may not relate to space in the everyday sense, both of these trajectories informed a broad, freewheeling consideration of sound and culture.

GREG J. SMITH is a Toronto-based designer and researcher with interests in media theory and digital culture. Extending from a background in architecture, his research considers how contemporary information paradigms affect representational and spatial systems. Greg is a designer at Mission Specialist and a contributing editor at Creative Applications Network [CAN]. His writing has appeared in Rhizome, Vectors, ICON, 3:AM Magazine, Current Intelligence and other publications. Greg has presented work internationally at institutions including Resonate (Belgrade), Eyeo Festival (Minneapolis), Medialab-Prado (Madrid) and the Western Front (Vancouver). He is an adjunct instructor in the CCIT program (U of T Mississauga/Sheridan College) and a member of the LA Game Space external advisory board. Greg received a Master of Architecture from John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto in 2007. He also studied design at LAIAD and received a B.A. (Philosophy) from the University of Toronto in 1999.

The heart of the conference involves four separate discussions on the relationship of sound and space to be led by four artists/researchers; bringing together creative thinkers from Montréal, Toronto, New York City, San Francisco, and of course right here in Ottawa. Planned as dynamic free flow conversations, we are excited about what ideas will unfold from these exchanges! Building up to the major discussion panels is a keynote address from Dr. Barry Blesser, a digital audio pioneer and co-author of the fascinating interdisciplinary exploration – Spaces Speak: Are you listening? On Friday, a daytime symposium with the Carleton School of Architecture will explore specific ideas about the built environment and the sonic experience, while at night a collaboration with Pecha Kucha Ottawa brings together artists, designer and researchers for a rapid fire exploration of the role of sound in the urban fabric.

In the screen / But not seen … Neither matter / Neither taste / Neither solid / Neither space SWANS, “THE DAUGHTER BRINGS THE WATER”

This ‘lossy’ compression is all about streamlining, an economizing of both sound and disk storage.

How Does Culture Shape Sound?

What does it mean to speak of “aural culture?” What does listening offer, as a tool or technique for understanding our world, that visual perception cannot? The sounds that fill our lives are dense with information about the interwoven cultures to which we belong, and approaches to their investigation can take similarly varied routes. For Linda-Ruth Salter, language is a primary element of culture. Expressed aloud it is a richly coded meaning system, but it can also speak volumes when forced into silence.

$ Value and Values

Join us as Macy Siu gives us the lowdown on another development from the Digital Economies Lab – the Offer/Need Machine. In an era where the gig economy has monetized every informal network from ride sharing to pet sitting, the Offer/Need Machine proposes a network of decentralized reciprocity. Pay close attention to when Siu explains the need for an anti-capitalist model and more-than-human design.

Tom Bessai