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Alvin Lucier – Project 76 “Nothing is Real” (1990)

 

Alvin Lucier's Project 76, "Nothing is Real," is a composition that uses spoken works and electronic processing to explore the nature of language and perception. It is based on a recorded spoken sentence – Nothing is Real – that is gradually processed and distorted. It creates a series of echoes and reverberations that slowly transform the original sentence into a surreal and otherworldly soundscape.

I found the piece quite disorienting and unsettling, as the distortion of the spoken words created a sense of uncanny or even a weird, surreal detachment from reality. After the first recording got played into the room (recording and replaying every replay (cycle)), the creation of an echo and its reverb with the distortion of the voice got creepier and, with every repetition, more unsettling. Frequencies changed depending on the pitch and echo the recording created. With each recording (replayed), the voice got more and more distorted and pitched to the point of no coherence. It created sound waves (no voice or speech, particularly, can be heard). Each high-pitched sound emitted turned into a screeching sound (the sounds of the speech and vibrations (etc.) are now closer together and start to form one singular (or more) soundwave(s)). The Background waves also got distorted, which created this natural but simultaneously unnatural sort of uncanny, as the natural frequencies of the room created the different pitches of the room (the room created its own sound) within the articulation of an acoustic space. In the end, the sound produced by the room’s reverb, vibrations, and waves brought forth the pitches and screeches of the speech within that particular room, creating a unique sound, though highly disturbing.

However, the thought-provoking experience challenged conventional ideas about music, language, and perception. It was and will probably still be an unsettling experience (one that I will not miss), but it has its own "charm." In a way, the piece highlights the nature of communication and meaning, as the original sentence is gradually stripped of its semantic content and transformed into an abstract sound object. This could even critique the means and understandings of communication and comprehension within society. It challenges and or opposes (also calls out) the fact that people do not listen carefully or only convey a part truth of a speech or conversation, which is due to the extent of comprehension (or how much someone has actually been listening) gradually lost its meaning or has been taken out of context.

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