Petri Kuljuntausta

SOUND

When planning a site-specific sound installation it is important to think about the acoustic balance of the public space at the very beginning and what kind of accents the sounds gives the space. If there is room for mobile phone signals, then there is room for sound art. The installation doesn’t have to play sound all the time nor the sound doesn’t have to be loud. Sound work could brake the every day routine of the residents and passers-by by bringing some accidental sounds into the space. 

I have recorded environmental sounds in many kind of places and anywhere I travel and composed soundscape compositions and sound art from these recordings since 1990s. I have learned that there is no absolute, truthful soundscape recordings. The microphone is the first sound tool that process the sound that I am going to record. It doesn’t capture all details of the acoustics, or what the ear can hear. Microphones, preamplifiers and recording devices leave their own marks on the recording. Also, our ability to perceive sound environment and its multiple sound layers is limited. We perceive only the most obvious elements and changes of the sound environment. Technological and subjective matters are always present in the field work.

I have developed my own technics to clean up the field recordings from unwanted noises and make them sound better. For example, when I have captured street recordings in a hectic urban city, there is typically noisy sound wall of vehicles and cars in the low sound register. But when I reduce the sound pressure of the low frequencies, the resulting soundscape comes much clearer and the higher frequencies will get more room. In the raw recording these were overshadowed by the louder sounds, but after the editing it is finally possible to hear the details of the tiny sounds of the soundscape.

In 2000 I composed a soundscape piece entitled Vroom!!!. The piece is based on the soundscape recordings that I made in Piccadilly Circus, London. The recording was great, but I had to fix the balance of the low and high register the way I mentioned above. After tweaking down the noisy sound wall, it was finally possible to hear softer and brighter hidden high frequencies. These were really there in my original recording, but noisy cars and vehicles shadowed them.

Deep sound textures were very powerful in the recording, and during the composition process I had to listen carefully the city noise, day after day. This resulted surprising side-effects. After a few days of sound editing I became sick of noise. I got physical reactions and I almost vomitted when I heard a car sound. Listening to many days this dense sound texture wasn't good thing for my senses. I had to take rests quite often, and continue the composition work when I was feeling better. Despite of my physical reaction to loud car noises, I liked the sounds of moving vehicles, and the hectic sound textures of the recording. The work is still very special and important to me.

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Sound art is one of the most fastly growing field in contemporary art. Especially in 2013 sound art was on the crest of the wave as many established international museums and galleries arranged big-scale sound art exhibitions in Europe and the USA.

In 2010’s in Finland, sound is a tool for many young artists and we have seen how fruitfully and actively sound art projects has started to grow up and develope. I have worked many years in the field and I have had chance to follow the progress very closely. And sometimes I have had chance to affect to the progress. In 1995 I founded Charm of Sound association (Äänen Lumo ry) to produce sound art and electronic music concerts and releases. Four years later, in 1999, I was one of the founding members of the Finnish Society for Acoustic Ecology. Our activity during the first years culminated to the release of the book and cd entitled ‘Sata suomalaista äänimaisemaa’ (Engl. 100 Finnish Soundscapes). Since 1990s I have organized many sound art courses in art and science universities and lectured on the subject. I have been lucky to see how sound art finally landed on Finnish soil — and how the movement has developed before it will become part of the art institution.

During these groundbreaking years the sound environment around us has changed too. When we walk in the city center and listen to the soundscape of the city, we often notice how the sites are sonically messy places. We don’t have control over the sounds and all kind of unnecessary signals and musics are coming from every possible direction — from video and television monitors, speakers and personal sound devices. People carry their own mobile phones and their tiny (but amazing powerful) speakers distribute signals and music fragments to the environment. We see and hear people talking, but we don’t see the other person for whom they talk.

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We don’t have chances to experience sound art works in the public spaces very often. What is the reason for this? It is often said that the city planners and art curators don’t commission sound art works as the works contain electricity and complicated technology and this will cause problems at some point. 

It is true that the work could stop and go malfunction, like any other electronic device. Without maintenance nothing lasts forever. The technology is not a problem if the artist behind the work has carefully planned the work and thought all the possible problems in advance. There are many possible ways to design and install sound works. I have seen sound works that run well through the years without serious problems. I have also seen sound works in museums that stopped working soon after the opening as its technology was not tested well before the installation. Even the museum's AV-technicians can’t give their help if the technology of the work is too vague and unstable. Simpler the technology, longer the work will last. Mechanical works are easier to repair, software-based works needs regular updating.

Another reason why the city planners and curators don’t prefer sound art works could be the sound itself. They might think that the unexpected sound in a space, at the everyday situation, causes negative feedback from the passers-by. This might happen for sure, it is hard to please all.

Around mid-1990s I got a commission to made a sound installation for a metro station. There were over six thousand passangers who heard my Birdscape Music (1997) each day at the metro stop. From the tens of thousands of passangers during the opening weeks only one had critized the unexpected sound. It was difficult to understand why the innocent sounds of the installation, a bird song and soft percussion sounds, disturbed someone. But they did. I heard that the person who complained was mentally unbalanced and got bad vibes from the bird singing. The head of the officers took the odd critic seriously and used this one negative comment for years as the reason to deny artists to create sound installations at the metro area. The decision was radical. The officer didn’t think about the others who were delighted to hear the work, and willing to experience something new.

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Part of the noise pollution in the cities will be eliminated in the future when we’ll have a chance to use advanced sound distribution technologies in the public places. A ‘directional speaker’, for example, doesn't spread sound all around. You'll hear the sound only when you're in front of (or under) the speaker. If you take a one step aside, you'll hear almost nothing of its sound. 

In the future we will propably have a mobile player that also creates invisible ‘sound bubble’ around the person. The music that we play from the mobile speaker doesn’t spread out from the bubble. With the help of ultra-sound technology the sound-proof bubble could be created. Inside the bubble we don’t have to use earphones and the music doesn’t disturb the others. We can talk with a friend inside the bubble and no one outside will hear the discussion.

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We can’t live in a total silence. If the cars are too silent, the possibility for accidents increase. We need sounds, but we should also notice how much unnecessary sounds we produce and stress the environment. On October 8th we annually celebrate national Silent Day event, the main organizer of the day is the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation. 10-15 years ago I was a member in the group who organized the day and my contribution for the event was the concept of ‘Hiljainen vartti’ (Engl. Silent Quarter). In the ‘Hiljainen vartti’ statement I encouraged all people to stop creating unnecessary noises and close the machines they don’t need for the fifteen minutes. At some point this tradition ended (few years after I had to leave the organizing group) and ‘Hiljainen vartti’ was dropped out from the Silent Day programme. It is pity that this happened, we should get back the ‘Hiljainen vartti’. At least once in the year we should think about our actions and the unnecessary sounds we make. 15 minutes per year is a good start, even better if we can do it for a longer time... 

12.9.2015