spread - new underground guerrilla experimental art + literature

By Psychic TV

The urge to capture and preserve pieces of our experience has run through much of man's development. From the earliest creative efforts, right through to current developments in communications and entertainment technology, attempts have been made to snatch moments from time and hold them in a state which might enable another to experience the event for themselves. In other words, a vain attempt to make experience repeatable.

Recent work in Egypt and Japan reveals the existence of possible primitive forays into the recording of sound. At the present time, no conclusive evidence as to the function of the 'supposed' equipment has emerged, but it is clear that at least an awareness of the possibility existed.

Coincidently, the first 'recordings' both visual and aural that did not rely on the direct intervention of the human hand (painting, sketching, transcription of music, etc.) arrived just before the turn of the century. It is impossible to re-experience the impact of these inventions must have had at first hand, paradoxically, the reason for their invention. So from the outset, their original purpose was lost.

If it is thought on reading these words that this is not the case, it should be remembered that most people are aware on any exposure to any media (which may be viewed as a conglomeration of such devices for recording and then disseminating experience, events and information) that the whole picture is not present. Most people on reading a newspaper, watching the News on television are apt to disbelieve what they hear or see at least once in the course of a sitting. This is not to condemn the devices out of hand. It is not the fault of the builder when a drunkard smashes a brick into someone's head.

Dating from the early 1930's (and possibly before this), when French radio broadcast Musique Concrete manufactured from live manipulation of wax discs, and soon after, when Varese started to introduce some of the first tape- recorded machine sounds into the orchestra ("Deserts", etc.), realisation has gradually dawned as to the other possibilities of the recording of events - in this case, events in the sound world (although the rest of the theory holds true for the visual image also).

In other words the realisation came that 'snapshots' of the world, i.e., representations lifelike enough to jolt the memory, could be altered, juxtaposed with others, repeated endlessly, and subjected to as many perversions as the operator of the tape recorder desired. It offered the unnerving feeling of playing a kind of lessor God, manipulating common, everyday sounds into the mould the whim of the creator happened to alight upon.

And with a few, very few exceptions, this is the way it has remained. Recent developments enable theft by 'sampling' another's composition, which in turn may well have been sampled from something else, and so on ad infinitum.

The initial results of this process must have been very disturbing. Again, we cannot now recapture this effect, due to a familiar process - namely assimilation. What was regarded as daring, provocative, ground-breaking, now occupies the supermarket shelves, the most conservative of broadcasting networks, and finally, even brings forth tired glances and yawning from the very people it originated from. Because it no longer belongs to them.

But the point is, surely that it never belonged to them in the first place! The sounds were not theirs - they attempted, and are still attempting, to plait them with fog, to cage the sky. Unfortunately, they have mistaken the act of pointing with the object being pointed at.

At this point, it is our contention to suggest that the reason why this has happened is the concentration on the 'Entertainment' factor, or rather, Aesthetics over meaning, function and content.

Indeed, we would go further and state that our work addresses the problem by treating the 'raw' material as fragments from life, to be treated with respect as this deserves. Although not experience itself, a well-made sound recording of a place (or person or thing) nevertheless contains a fragment of the 'soul' of that place (or person or thing). By examination of auditory phenomenae, psychological and physiological use of certain frequencies, careful testing and contruction of 'situations', 'environments', 'programmes', which might be any number of tactics in combination, an artificially induced 'place' can be created which can,

Under the right circumstances, produce true communication between people on the three levels of human perception (head, heart and hands,, or if you prefer, Body, mind and spirit).

We see this as infinitely worthy of our support, judging by the almost complete lack of others investigating this, to us, quite crucially important area. The possibilities afforded by such a chance to speak directly to one another are breathtaking.

In this way, we are returning experience to itself, returning machines back to their rightful place as servants, and hopefully, people back to each other instead of the present tendency to compartmentalise and separate one another.

So, our position we prefer to state as being concerned with research into sound and to a lesser extent, visual material etc., in order that communication may be made between people, rather then the present system of reciprocal vampirism. This may of course include the study of music, and has in the past, during fruitful examinations of the ritual, religious and other ancient forms of encoding information in serach of just such a form of 'direct', 'experimental' communication as above. As we have stated before and elsewhere, we have forgotten, almost willfully in some cases, these important and extremely efficient methods.

Our problem, then, is to make these methods both new and old available for utilisation by all, in fact, to positively encourage their assimilation (but not their dilution or corruption). Rather the reverse of all the efforts noted hitherto.

But what makes some of these previous efforts so interesting is their accidental and unwitting use of just these devices. The framework has been miraculously constructed in the name of entertainment, and this is all it carried. Rather like getting an African elephant to carry a golf-ball on its back whilst you walk alongside it through the jungle. As with ourselves, it is the same with all we create; our capabilities are so under-used that it now takes more and more people to accomplish less and less. We are devoting our precious time (although it does not seem to be such to many) to the creation of ideas, objects and processes that pass directly into our refuse system. We try and try to escape the one thing that can be truly called our own - ourselves. We create diversion beyond enumeration - it screams at us every second along streets, in our houses, and most dangerous of all, inside our minds. Although we are only beginning the first steps along a long road, we believe that the processes offered by research into areas of our work and those connected with it make possible contact with ourselves and our environment. The truth may be painful, but at least it is the truth.

So the 'capturing' of sound does not imply that we can or should create 'another' world which we can then inhabit, leaving behind the wreckage of the present one. By the intelligent use of this tool (and tool it should remain), a mirror can be cast up apart from communicating with symbols open to many different interpretations, one that brings us HERE, to come to NOW. Because this is where we are; and by dealing with this, we form the basis of where we might go. At present it lamentably seems as if we are trying to run before we can walk. The fact of the 'forgotten' knowledge only makes our position more criminal.

And if we do not address ourselves to this question, namely that of how better to speak and communicate with others, so that real creation may occur on this planet as the result of effort and intention, objective will, then all we will be doing is making desperate sign language from the funeral pyre.

A. McKenzie for the Hafler Trio, 1987