Acousmonium Sator Opening

The inauguration of the "first permanent acousmonium in Italy" has been held on January 30th and February 6th 2012 at the San Fedele Auditorium in Milan, with the direction of Dante Tanzi and Giovanni Cospito. The acousmonium Sator has been designed and implemented by Eraldo Bocca and it is a sound space projection system of 38 speakers, each one corresponding to peculiar diffusion values.

[ElectroAcoustics Magazine February 8th 2012] On January 30th, with a replica [second performance] on this past February 6th, the inauguration of the "first stable acousmonium in Italy" was held at the San Fedele Auditorium in Milan, according to the testimony of composer Giovanni Cospito, who for decades has been a curator of initiatives in this sense in Italy and abroad, as well as a pioneer, together with Dante Tanzi, of acousmatic interpretation and live electronics.

The acousmonium designed and put into operation by Eraldo Bocca is a system for the projection of sound in space composed of 38 loudspeakers, each corresponding to different diffusion characteristics. Dante Tanzi and Giovanni Cospito curated the direction, interpreting the works on the program, which is to say managing their diffusion through the system with a stereo signal coming from a MacBook and controlled via a mixer; thus determining—through knowledge of the characteristics of the works on the program—the placement of sounds within the listening space and, therefore, the modalities of fruition [consumption] of the works.

The listening experience was thus characterized by completely singular variations with respect to the perceptibility of sound, in relation to the specific characteristics of the local situation of projection and sound direction.

The foundation of acousmatic music is the perceptibility of sound in a relationship more or less uncoupled from the source, which is to say as a function of the degrees of perceptibility of sound, whether it concerns the recording of this or that source, or whether it concerns synthesis. The modalities of sound perception in action are, therefore, the object around which the acousmatic experience revolves, on this side of the original "what-it-is" that produced the sound, or the "what-it-is" one might associate with it by reason of daily auditory habits. This is according to the indications of Pierre Schaeffer, who used the definition for the first time in 1966, placing this acousmatic concept of music in relationship with the "musique concrète" of which he had been the founder in 1948; as well as according to the decisive clarifications made on multiple occasions by Michel Chion. [1]

The work on the perceptibility of the totality—and therefore of the various parts and the various levels of the totality of the properties of sound—is de facto the focal metric with which one can distinguish an acousmatic composition from one that is not; that is to say, [a composition] which, despite relying exclusively on technologies in the absence of the performance of traditional instrumentalists, meaning in the presence of loudspeakers alone, falls within the scope of electronic music in the absence of an apprehensive care for the processes of perceptibility of the totality of parts and levels of sound. This is, moreover, on this side of the fields of canonical classification of works, whether they are of cultivated [high-art] and academic extraction or of alternative extraction. This is also the reason why works of different origins in terms of context and era were brought together in the evenings in question, such as: Fol3 and SonDEremawe(Autechre, 2008), White Blur 1 and Hangable Auto Bulb (Aphex Twin, 1994-1995), De natura sonorum (Bernard Parmegiani, 1975).

The acousmonium gives rise to an unprecedented sonic dimension that possesses the substance of physical space, determining degrees and levels of the perceptibility of the totality of sound parts and registers, and of the fruition of the works, such as would not be possible otherwise; therefore, one often associates the idea of sound projection via the acousmonium with that of audiovisual projection. However, the experience of fruition made available by the acousmonium projects sound physically into space in a way that the audiovisual fruition experience does not do except virtually, insofar as the cinematic screen delimits the filmic space that defines itself in this manner. On the other hand, in cinema, that which uniquely transcends the screen into the physical space of spectator fruition is precisely the sound that diffuses from the various loudspeakers, thereby reaching the ear. It thus determines branched, multi-directional perceptive and cognitive conditions, insofar as they are proper to a multimedia discourse, which constitute and determine a film at the deepest levels. This is what can be attributed to sonic language and to nothing else, as we have had the occasion to study and remark upon elsewhere [2]. Therefore, the idea of projection into space certainly originates from cinema. On one hand, in consideration of the remarkable levels achieved in some theaters in the reasoned arrangement of multiple diffusion points along the length of the auditorium itself, by virtue of the most recent Digital Theater and Dolby Digital Surround systems; on another hand, in consideration of the fact that within the field of film theories, and not elsewhere (and yet faced with the contemporary and electronic history of music), reflection on sound and on the perceptibility of the same—as well as on the conditions of knowledge connected to such perception and the raising of awareness of this reflection—has reached the highest historical-cultural levels of the present day [3].

This does not alter the fact, however, that it is through the most specific experiences of listening—with the composition of sound in the studio first and with the acousmonium later—and not with cinema, that sound progresses in its projection into space. Uncoupled from audio-vision as well as from other factors of perceptive conditioning proper to the sonic habits of daily reality, the acousmatic work—both compositional and interpretative—determines a unique correspondence between the totality of sonic means and levels and the totality of perceptive, cognitive means and levels, and the mechanisms of thought; as we point out in some crucial paragraphs of the study currently in progress [4]. Above all, where sound is not conditioned in its fruition by auditory habits, and where it is not limited in its projection by a conventional system of diffusion, behold: the experience of the acousmonium is the most concrete, singular, and unprecedented of sonic experiences; that is to say, the experience through which the culture of sound [5], which for some decades now has enjoyed a discreet general awareness at an international level, accomplishes one of its most important steps.

The two evenings in question drew a number of listeners such as to completely fill the auditorium. The public, varied and yet composed of a youth majority—probably attracted by the internationally renowned names on the program—further confirmed the success of the experience when, once the direction and interpretation of De Natura Sonorumended, they surrounded Maestro Giovanni Cospito from multiple sides to submit to him questions of a technical-aesthetic nature regarding the modalities of the projection carried out.

None of those present, upon entering the hall, could have previously imagined the extraordinariness of the experience. [R. Daniele]

References:

1. P. Schaeffer, Traité des Objets Musicales, Seuil 1966-2002; M. Chion, L’Art des sons fixes ou La Musique Concrètement, Fontaine, Editions Metamkine/Nota-Bene/Sono-Concept, 1991; Italian trans. L’arte dei suoni fissati o La Musica Concretamente, Roma, Edizioni Interculturali, 2004; M. Chion, L’audio-vision. Son et image au cinéma, Paris, Editions Nathan, 1990, Italian trans. L’audiovisione, suono e immagine nel cinema, Torino, Lindau, 2001.

2. R. Daniele, Ascenseur pour l'échafaud, il luogo della musica nell'audiovisione [The Place of Music in Audio-vision], RDM Edizioni Letterarie, Milano, 2011.

3. M. Chion, L’audiovisione, suono e immagine nel cinema, cit. The text, which studies sound in cinema from a rigorous technical and aesthetic point of view like never before, is furthermore rich in bibliographic references such as to rapidly convey the idea of the volume and prominence of the theoretical contributions of which the field of audio-vision is the hearth. A parallel theoretical apprehension is therefore not yet detected within the field of electronic music.

4. R. Daniele, Voce Sola. Saggio intorno al discorso vocale [Solo Voice. Essay around the vocal discourse], in course of production, RDM Edizioni Letterarie, Milano.

5. F. Delalande, Le Son des Musiques. Entre technologie et esthétique, INA-Buchet/Chastel, Pierre Zech Editeur, Paris, 2001; Italian trans. Dalla nota al suono. La seconda rivoluzione tecnologica della musica [From Note to Sound. The second technological revolution of music], FrancoAngeli, Milano, 2010.

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