I Am Sitting in a Room

Last updated
I am sitting in a room
by Alvin Lucier
Genre Process
LanguageEnglish
Composed1969 (1969): Brandeis University
Performed1970 (1970): Guggenheim Museum
Recorded1969 (1969): Electronic Music Studio at Brandeis

I am sitting in a room is a sound art piece composed in 1969 and one of composer Alvin Lucier's best known works.

Contents

The piece features Lucier recording himself narrating a text, and then playing the tape recording back into the room, re-recording it. The new recording is then played back and re-recorded, and this process is repeated. Due to the room's particular size and geometry, certain frequencies of the recording are emphasized while others are attenuated. Eventually the words become unintelligible, replaced by the characteristic resonant frequencies of the room itself. [1]

In his book on the origins of minimalism, Edward Strickland wrote that "In its repetition and limited means, I am sitting in a room ranks with the finest achievements of Minimal tape music. Furthermore, in its ambient conversion of speech modules into drone frequencies, it unites the two principal structural components of Minimal music in general." [1]

History and performances

Lucier states that he was originally inspired to create I am sitting in a room after a colleague mentioned attending a lecture at MIT in which Amar Bose described how he tested characteristics of the loudspeakers he was developing by feeding back audio into them that they had produced in the first place and then was picked up via microphones. [2] [3]

The first recording of I am sitting in a room was made at the Electronic Music Studio at Brandeis University in 1969. [4] [5] [6] The second recording was made in March 1970 in Lucier's apartment in Middletown. [7] [8]

The first performance of the work was in 1970 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. [6] In collaboration with his partner Mary Lucier, the performance featured projections of Polaroid images that had been degraded like the voice. [9]

A third, higher fidelity recording of I am sitting in a room lasting over 40 minutes was released in 1981. [10] [11]

Lucier performed the piece during the 2012 Venice Biennale Musica at the Teatro alle Tese, and a recording of this performance was commercially released on the 2016 album Alvin Lucier / Alter Ego: Two Circles. [12]

Some of the last performances by Lucier included one at MIT's "Seeing/Sounding/Sensing" symposium in September 2014, [2] [13] [14] and the full collaborative piece was performed for the first time in over 50 years as part of the New Ear Festival at the Fridman Gallery in New York in 2019.

Full text

The text spoken by Lucier describes the process of the work, concluding with a reference to his own stuttering:

I am sitting in a room different from the one you are in now. I am recording the sound of my speaking voice and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed. What you will hear, then, are the natural resonant frequencies of the room articulated by speech. I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a physical fact, but more as a way to smooth out any irregularities my speech might have. [15]

Subsequent works

In 2010, YouTube user Patrick Liddell created an homage to I am sitting in a room entitled VIDEO ROOM 1000, in which he uploaded a video of himself speaking text similar to Lucier's original to YouTube, then manually downloaded and re-uploaded it 1,000 times in sequence over the course of a year, in order to demonstrate the resulting digital artifacting of audio and video analogously to Lucier's original demonstration of analog artifacting of audio. [16] [17]

In 2013, filmmakers Viola Rusche and Hauke Harder decided to use I am sitting in a room as the "main structuring element" of the documentary "No Ideas but In Things" (2013). According to the filmmakers' notes, "the various process steps of the piece [I am sitting in a room] divide the film into chapters so that this work serves as an integral part of the film." [18]

Similar to Patrick Liddell, in 2019, YouTube user Marques Brownlee created an homage to I am sitting in a room entitled This Is What Happens When You Re-Upload a YouTube Video 1000 Times!, where he uploaded a video of himself speaking text similar to Lucier's original to Youtube, then downloaded and re-uploaded it 1,000 times. This demonstrated the resulting digital artifacting of audio and video - specifically about YouTube in 2019. [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Formant</span> Spectrum of phonetic resonance in speech production, or its peak

In speech science and phonetics, a formant is the broad spectral maximum that results from an acoustic resonance of the human vocal tract. In acoustics, a formant is usually defined as a broad peak, or local maximum, in the spectrum. For harmonic sounds, with this definition, the formant frequency is sometimes taken as that of the harmonic that is most augmented by a resonance. The difference between these two definitions resides in whether "formants" characterise the production mechanisms of a sound or the produced sound itself. In practice, the frequency of a spectral peak differs slightly from the associated resonance frequency, except when, by luck, harmonics are aligned with the resonance frequency, or when the sound source is mostly non-harmonic, as in whispering and vocal fry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">High fidelity</span> High-quality reproduction of sound

High fidelity is the high-quality reproduction of sound. It is popular with audiophiles and home audio enthusiasts. Ideally, high-fidelity equipment has inaudible noise and distortion, and a flat frequency response within the human hearing range.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alvin Lucier</span> American composer (1931–2021)

Alvin Augustus Lucier Jr. was an American composer of experimental music and sound installations that explore acoustic phenomena and auditory perception. A long-time music professor at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, Lucier was a member of the influential Sonic Arts Union, which included Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and Gordon Mumma. Much of his work is influenced by science and explores the physical properties of sound itself: resonance of spaces, phase interference between closely tuned pitches, and the transmission of sound through physical media.

Robert Reynolds Ashley was an American composer, who was best known for his television operas and other theatrical works, many of which incorporate electronics and extended techniques. His works often involve intertwining narratives and take a surreal multidisciplinary approach to sound, theatrics and writing, and have been continuously performed by various interpreters during and after his life, including Automatic Writing (1979) and Perfect Lives (1983).

Arnold Dreyblatt is an American composer, performance artist and visual artist.

Clocker, for clock, galvanic skin response sensor and digital delay system, is a minimalist electronic music piece by Alvin Lucier conceived in 1978, though Lucier felt there did not exist an appropriate digital delay system till 1988: "With this new equipment, the sounds of the delayed clock now matched those of the original, creating clear copies and with them a more convincing illusion of time expanding and contracting. Later I added a bank of fixed delays which, as they splay out from the voltage controlled delay, create multiple reflections that almost convince the listener that the room is changing size."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music On A Long Thin Wire</span>

″Music on a Long Thin Wire is a musical piece by Alvin Lucier conceived in 1977.

Generation loss is the loss of quality between subsequent copies or transcodes of data. Anything that reduces the quality of the representation when copying, and would cause further reduction in quality on making a copy of the copy, can be considered a form of generation loss. File size increases are a common result of generation loss, as the introduction of artifacts may actually increase the entropy of the data through each generation.

Lovely Music is an American record label devoted to new American music. Based in New York City, the label was founded in 1978 by Mimi Johnson, an outgrowth of her nonprofit production company Performing Artservices Inc. It is one of the most important and longest running labels focusing exclusively on new music and has released over 100 recordings on LP, CD, and videocassette.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sound recording and reproduction</span> Recording of sound and playing it back

Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording.

The long-string instrument is a musical instrument in which the string is of such a length that the fundamental transverse wave is below what a person can hear as a tone (±20 Hz). If the tension and the length result in sounds with such a frequency, the tone becomes a beating frequency that ranges from a short reverb to longer echo sounds. Besides the beating frequency, the string also gives higher pitched natural overtones. Since the length is that long, this has an effect on the attack tone. The attack tone shoots through the string in a longitudinal wave and generates the typical science-fiction laser-gun sound as heard in Star Wars. The sound is also similar to that occurring in upper electricity cables for trains.

It's Gonna Rain is a tape composition written by Steve Reich in 1965. It lasts about 18 minutes. It was Reich's first major work and is considered a landmark in minimalism and process music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Lucier</span> American artist

Mary Lucier is an American visual artist and pioneer in video art. Concentrating primarily on video and installation since 1973, she has produced numerous multiple- and single-channel pieces that have had a significant impact on the medium.

Judy Dunaway is a conceptual sound artist, avant-garde composer, free improvisor and creator of sound installations who is primarily known for her sound works for latex balloons. Since 1990 she has created over thirty works for balloons as sound conduits and has also made this her main instrument for improvisation.

Ron Kuivila is an American sound artist from Boston, MA. He is primarily known for his sound installations, performances, and recorded materials that make use of computers, and for his contributions to the SuperCollider audio programming language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Worrall (composer)</span> Australian composer and sound artist (born 1954)

David Worrall is an Australian composer and sound artist working a range of genres, including data sonification, sound sculpture and immersive polymedia as well as traditional instrumental music composition.

Patrick Liddell is a composer and video artist living in Oakland, California. He earned his Doctor of Music from Northwestern University in 2009. His thesis is titled "Arrow To The Sun: Postmodernism As Compositional Tool", which outlines the contextual processes in postmodernist art, as well as includes a detailed description of the compositional, theoretical, and contextual framework for all his output. The music from "Arrow To The Sun" was the basis for Liddell's first solo studio release.

A mixing engineer is responsible for combining ("mixing") different sonic elements of an auditory piece into a complete rendition, whether in music, film, or any other content of auditory nature. The finished piece, recorded or live, must achieve a good balance of properties, such as volume, pan positioning, and other effects, while resolving any arising frequency conflicts from various sound sources. These sound sources can comprise the different musical instruments or vocals in a band or orchestra, dialogue or foley in a film, and more.

Matthew "Mat" Taylor, better known by his YouTube handle Techmoan, is a British YouTuber and blogger, specializing in consumer tech reviews and retrotech documentaries about technology of historical interest.

Yanny or Laurel is an auditory illusion that became popular in May 2018, in which a short audio recording of speech can be heard as one of two words. 53 percent of over 500,000 respondents to a Twitter poll reported hearing a man saying the word "Laurel", while 47 percent of people reported hearing a voice saying the name "Yanny". Analysis of the sound frequencies has confirmed that both sets of sounds are present in the mixed recording, but some users focus on the higher frequency sounds in "Yanny" and cannot seem to hear the lower sounds of the word "Laurel". When the audio clip is slowed to lower frequencies, the word "Yanny" is heard by more listeners, while faster playback loudens "Laurel".

References

  1. 1 2 Edward Strickland (1993). Minimalism--origins. Indiana University Press. pp. 281–. ISBN   0-253-21388-6.
  2. 1 2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2014-11-04). "Alvin Lucier on 'I am sitting in a room' – YouTube". YouTube . Retrieved 2016-09-22.
  3. ↑ Alvin Lucier (1995). Reflexionen. Ed. MusikTexte. ISBN   978-3-9803151-2-8.
  4. ↑ Lucier, Alvin. I am sitting in a room. Lovely Music, Ltd., 1990. CD.
  5. ↑ "DRAM: Notes for "Alvin Lucier: I am sitting in a room"". Dramonline.org. Retrieved 2010-03-02.
  6. 1 2 Andrea Miller-Keller (15 January 2012). Alvin Lucier: A Celebration. Wesleyan University Press. pp. 43–. ISBN   978-0-8195-7280-6.
  7. ↑ Collins, Nicolas (March 14, 1990). "Album notes: I am sitting in a room". Lovely. Lovely Music, Ltd. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
  8. ↑ Lucier, Alvin; Simon, Douglas (1980). Chambers. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. p. 37. ISBN   9780819573087.
  9. ↑ "Mary Lucier by Alex Klein - BOMB Magazine". bombmagazine.org. Retrieved 2020-11-05.
  10. ↑ Lucier, Alvin; Scholnick, Daniel (2015-07-20). "Alvin Lucier – Discography". wesleyan.edu. Retrieved 2017-04-13. I AM SITTING IN A ROOM: Lovely Music, Ltd. LP/CD 1013, 1981/1990.
  11. ↑ "I am sitting in a room". lovely.com. 2016-01-01. Retrieved 2017-04-13. in the course of 40 minutes and 32 repetitions" ... "This recording was made by Alvin Lucier on October 29th and 31st, 1980, in the living room of his home in Middletown, CT. The material was recorded on a Nagra tape recorder with an Electro-Voice 635 dynamic microphone and played back on one channel of a Revox A77 tape recorder, Dynaco amplifier and a KLH Model Six loudspeaker.
  12. ↑ "Alvin Lucier, Alter Ego (9) – Two Circles". Discogs. Retrieved 2019-06-05.
  13. ↑ Patterson, David (28 September 2014). "Intrigue, Lure & Lucier Sounding". The Boston Musical Intelligencer. Retrieved 28 February 2017.
  14. ↑ "Seeing/Sounding/Sensing – Arts at MIT" . Retrieved 2016-09-22.
  15. ↑ Collins, Nicolas. ""I Am Sitting in a Room" Album notes". Archived from the original on 18 August 2017.
  16. ↑ "VIDEO ROOM 1000 COMPLETE MIX – All 1000 videos seen in sequential order! – YouTube". YouTube . 2010-06-09. Retrieved 2016-03-18.
  17. ↑ "Ontologist: Music, Video, and Meaning | VIDEO ROOM 1000 FAQ". 2010-06-02. Retrieved 2016-03-18.
  18. ↑ "FILMMAKERS' NOTES" . Retrieved 24 November 2018.
  19. ↑ "This Is What Happens When You Re-Upload a YouTube Video 1000 Times!".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.