Skip to main content

Pauline Oliveros

 

In the excerpt from MFA-IA Fall Residency at Goddard College, Pauline Oliveros performs her well-known art of “deep listening“. The video is about 11 minutes long and shows two women, who are in a well with a ladder on the wall. During the video, the women climb the ladder up and down. Furthermore, three candles are placed in the middle of the well. The walls of the well are painted with graffiti. The overall setting of the recording is dark, overwhelming, and oppressive. It seems as if the two woman are filmed by another women. The two women are dancing in the video, walking around, and talking with each other.

Now the question arises what one can hear when watching the video? The main sounds one can hear are the dialogues between the two women one can see in the video and the other woman, who is recording the video. Their voices can be heard as their laughter. Furthermore, their dialogues are stressed out by the echo of their voices in the well. When only listening to the sounds and not watching the video, one might have the impression of being in the middle of the scenery in the well.  Still, I cannot hear what the actors in the video say but only hear their laughter. According to Liang Khong (2022), the distinction between hearing and listening was crucial for Oliveros.[1] “Hearing, she writes, ‘represents the primary sense organ - hearing happens involuntarily‘“, while listening happens voluntarily. Oliveros’ well-known art of  “deep-listening“ is clearly hearable in the video. Such “deep-listening“ is based on being fully concentrated on the sound and feeling the sound with all of your senses. Pauline Olivero’s composition is based on minimalism. In contrast to conventional and regular compositions, Olivero’s work does not contain any sounds of instruments or singing.

While listening to Olivero’s composition, I had very uncommon, heavy, and gloomy feelings. The feelings of the movement of the two women in the video arise the feeling of experiencing a horror movie at close quarters. For minute 7.34 on, a kind of holy music. This additional sound accentuates my gloomy impression even more. However, I have to admit that the experience of listening to Olivero’s composition, was a different experience. In contrast to other songs, one is not distracted by hundreds of impressions, caused by the interaction of instruments, technical sounds, and singing. To put it in a nutshell, I experienced Olivero’s composition as different and interesting, although it does not match the compositions of today’s artists and expectations.


[1] https://artreview.com/whats-the-point-of-deep-listening-pauline-oliveros/

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure

 Sarah Kumar Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath The Future of (American) Music 06 Mar. 2023 Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure According to John Oswald, “[a] plunderphone is a recognizable sonic quote, using the actual sound of something familiar which has already been recorded” (Lecture Slides 18). However, only if the source stays recognizable can it be called plunderphonics. In his album Plexure , several songs are played back and mixed together, thus creating a new sound. This is interesting because while the excerpts of songs that are used are recognizable or at least sound familiar to some degree, played backwards and mashed up as they are in Plexure , they create a new sound. Like on the cover of the album, on which a collage making up a man can be seen, the mixing of different songs played backwards gives a new feeling to something known. The way the songs are mixed makes them unintelligible. The meaning of the words of the original recordings are not able to be compr...
Post a Comment
Read more

John Cage – Inlets

  This does not sound like music to me. Depending on the interpretation of different players or performers, this piece will always sound different. In this case, it sounds to me like someone is walking through a cave with water at the bottom, dragging their feet through it. Sometimes it sounds like water in a toilet bowl, especially when we hear the water in a bigger shell being swished around. These sounds are relaxing in the background, it is like a gentle stream of water. I just wonder what went through the head of the composer while writing this piece. But I guess he had some experimental ideas that are interesting to try out. Those shells are quite pretty, I have never seen such big ones that are not broken. I was surprised when something else happened towards the end of the piece. That tone which came out of the one shell was so clear, it sounded like a trumpet. I didn’t know that shells can sound like that. It was quite beautiful. It was a nice way to end the piece. I di...
Post a Comment
Read more

William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops III

  The Disintegration Loops is a quartet of albums published in 2002 and 2003 by American avant-garde composer William Basinski. The pieces are made up of tape loop recordings that were played over time, with noise and crackles rising as the tape deteriorated. Basinski noticed this effect when attempting to convert his older recordings to digital format. The completion of the recordings coincided with the September 11, 2001 events, which Basinski witnessed and adds a deeper meaning to the composition. The composition is fascinating in many ways and makes the listener lose track of time. The tape loop recording had a very calming effect on me and put me in a trance-like state when I listened to it in its entirety. The tape loop is really soothing, so much so that I didn't even notice the loss of quality when I first listened to it. It makes you forget about time and allows you to really get into the piece capturing the calmness it exudes. You forget or don't really notice how i...
Post a Comment
Read more