Seeking clarity and a knowing perspective on the subject of audio papers, I read Spectrograf’s article Audio Papers – a manifesto, by Sanne Krogh Groth and Kristine Samson. It comprises eight tenets or directives that suggest pathways for the production of an audio paper. A manifesto as a tool for artistic creation is something I treat as an artwork in and of itself, a subjective case for making a particular work. I think it touches on a larger issue I find with sound art as a field, which is its core relativity.
How is it possible to convey a clear thesis, if the epistemological frameworks are so elastic? I am not advocating for intensely rigid rules, but wrestling with the age-old contradiction; artists love to debate and establish forms of work and outcome, thereby defining boundaries, yet discourage adherence to dogma. An audio paper is this, an audio paper is that. An audio paper could be this, but it probably isn’t that. An audio paper must be this, but also do whatever you want. How to validate the abstract versus the concrete? I do not profess to know.
In detailing or connecting to a finer point, I know I wished to engage with a work more materially concrete, dense and rigorous than avant-garde. On Seismograf, I listened to Sonic Worlds Collide – Sounds from Ukraine by Milena Droumeva and Svitlana Matviyenko. Comprised of personal anecdotal observations and a larger reflective analysis of the dynamics of media and user attention as sensitive information is disseminated, debated, often treated with a collective ownership of a ‘correct’ understanding of the facts.
I hate to use the word ‘trend’, but it reflects the temporality of the mass media cycle, alongside the broader undercurrent of social media user observers. Stories wax and wane in relevance, in exposure. The finer details filtered out and larger events only bob up for a moment. A fascinating point this audio paper notes is the role of the consumer of information, the observer. Predominantly American males, armchair experts in the ‘fun’ of fighting in war.
Some extracted quotes that struck me as significant:
‘[to] cope with both the horror of war and confronting a lack of conventional and familiar frameworks… Postpose my urge for sense-making so I could dwell in these moments of nonsense and illogic a little longer, because they are what the war is. They are what I cannot explain in my TV and radio interviews.’
‘This rehearsed response [to sounds of Ukraine] gave me pause, what is an ethical way to listen here? What is my responsibility to ethically engage with recordings of precarious times and places. Geography, as Anderson and Rennie argue, is a ‘speech act, a web of narratives and conversations’, and I would add to that, a map of affect.’
Writing this, I realise that my own selection of this audio paper is likely coloured by the same gawking, masculine, war touristic curiosity Droumeva and Matviyenko describe. I seek it out to hear stories of unbelievable, derealised, horrific world events accessible from my bedroom. The light is dim, I am warm and the WiFi works.
I recorded a (somewhat) brief reflection on this particular audio paper:
References:
Groth, S. K. and Samson, K. (2016) Audio Papers – a manifesto. Available at: https://seismograf.org/fokus/fluid-sounds/audio_paper_manifesto (Accessed: 5 October 2024).
Droumeva, M. and Matviyenko, S. (2023) Sonic Worlds Collide – Sounds from Ukraine [Audio Paper]. 23 August. Available at: https://seismograf.org/node/20093 (Accessed: 5 October 2024)
Anderson, I., and Rennie, T. (2016) Thoughts in the Field: ‘Self-Reflexive Narrative’ in Field Recording. Organised Sound, 21(03), pp. 222–32. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355771816000194.