Call for electronic sound works for Zeppelin 2009 – Sounds of Power / Listening of Fear
We dedicate Zeppelin 2009 – Sounds of Power / Listening to Fear to thinking about issues that have been insidiously encircling us for some time. We are concerned about signs that might suggest we’re going backwards in terms of hard-won social and intellectual achievements and freedoms. This concern led us to pose the following series of questions, which we hope will go some way to inspiring the pieces presented:
1. What does it mean to receive and/or give an order?
2. The verbs ‘obey’ and ‘hear’ are known to be closely linked. How, then, should we view a society that appears increasingly ready to obey without stopping to think? What link is there between obeying and believing?
3. Why do we have a need for absolute truths, even where we know it’s impossible? Why do we think we already know everything? Do we need to learn techniques or not? Why do we think anyone can do anything? Shouldn’t we respect the ability to do things? To what extent is the term ‘art’ relevant or not?
4. In what sense have we moved from alienation at work to alienation in every, or almost every, sphere in life? Are we losing our awareness of alienation?
5. What does it mean to talk about control in the name of security? Don’t we feel safe? Why do we allow things to be done in the name of democracy that we’d condemn in a dictatorship?
6. Does a welfare society mean a growth society? (Cage said: “I don’t know if life is characterised by progress.”) Why do we think we live in the best of worlds?
7. What role or roles do sounds play in a welfare society and a growth society? Are they related to a loss of privacy? To what extent have neighbours become a new system of control in the hands of the state?
8. How do we view the fact that our instruments for organising sounds are linked to instruments designed to control? Is there a relationship between organising and controlling?
9. At a time when words are being chipped away at until they have a new meaning set down by law, and people who disagree with the criteria of others risk being branded as intolerant, how can we unmask this warped language without discrediting things further?
We invite people interested in sound to think about these questions and send us their sound works.
The pieces will be played through a system of eight loudspeakers on 10, 11 and 12 December 2009 at the Barcelona Centre for Contemporary Culture.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
All works received will be accepted provided they meet the following conditions:
1. Pieces should be NO LONGER than ten (10) minutes.
2. The format for the pieces should be WAV or AIFF at 44.1 kHz and 16 bits. Pieces may have up to eight tracks. Each track should be in a separate file (so a piece with eight tracks should have eight files each containing a single track).
3. The following documentation should be included:
3.1. Comments on the piece.
3.2. An artistic biography of the author.
3.3. A document signed by the author either giving or refusing explicit authorisation for the piece to be posted on the internet.
3.4. A document signed by the author giving authorisation for the piece to form part of the Sonoscop sound art archive.
4. The pieces and documentation should be sent on a CD/DVD by 15 November 2009 to:
caos/ZEPPELIN/convocatòria
Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona
C/Montalegre, 5
Barcelona 08001
Spain
For more information, please visit http://www.sonoscop.net or write to caos@sonoscop.net