Disciglio, 1 Phonography’s Intrinsic Aesthetic Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877. It was the first device that allowed users to both record sound and play it back. Interestingly, the phonograph did not really become a device for making aesthetic objects until nearly 60 years later after its invention. In an article on the history of the phonograph, David King Dunaway claims that initially, field recording was “looked at as a novelty… except in fields such as linguistics and ethnomusicology which previously relied on handwritten transcriptions of sounds.”1 Dunaway’s assertion reveals that phonography’s earliest stages were centered more toward its documentary dimension, that is, in its effectiveness in conveying information. But as figures like Alan Lomax and Pierre Schaeffer began looking at the field recording as an aesthetic object, phonography’s use as a source for sonorous expressions has become increasingly prevalent. In analyzing some key recording artists working today, it quickly becomes evident that many of these artists have undoubtedly felt the need to assert why their work achieves an aesthetic dimension. From these assertions, the dichotomy between art and document comes to the forefront of their work. The purpose of this essay is to assess that dichotomy. In investigating the duality between art and document in field recordings I have found that in contemporary experimental music and sound art, phonography has asserted itself as a valid medium for artistic expression. Yet at the same time, I have found many works still embracing a certain documentary dimension in their work. By investigating this dualism in a number of field works, I hope to reveal that field recordings are documents 1 David King Dunaway, “The Oral History Review,” The Oral History Reciew 15, no. 1 (1987), 22. Disciglio, 2 only when they are taken at face value (i.e., by their names, methodologies, roots). I will reveal that when these works are subjected to analysis and close listening, it is clear that these recordings are compositions, that is, their sounding is a result of a configuration carefully enacted by the recording artist. I purport that there is no valid, convincing, or even useful way to maintain the false dichotomy between document and art. There is no clean-­‐cut line between them. Every document conveys information and feeling through aesthetic means (strategies and tactics), even the most "pure" document. A "pure" document is a modern myth. I. THE DIMENSION OF THE DOCUMENT Phonography functions as a documentary process to the extent that it provides a methodology for recording and archiving the sounds of specific segments of reality and ideally replay them infinite times. This is precisely why ethnomusicologists and anthropologists found the phonograph so valuable; it allowed them to use sound instead of text as the medium by which they recorded the sounds of the people and places they were studying. I will look at Ernst Karel and Douglas Quin, two artists whose work is rooted in their association with science based institutions and hope to expose how the rate at which their work is a document. The Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard2 is particularly fascinating due to the department’s desire to intertwine aesthetics and ethnography (or as I see it, art and document) in order to “explore the aesthetics and ontology of the natural and unnatural 2 “Sensory Ethnography Lab,” Harvard Univesity, accessed April 28, 2015, http://sel.fas.harvard.edu/. Disciglio, 3 world.”3 The lab’s manager, Ernst Karel has released a number of very exciting projects over the past eight years that address the dualism between art and document. Karel received his PhD from the University of Chicago and published his dissertation in 2003; it was entitled, Kerala Sound Electricals: Amplified Sound and Cultural Meaning in South India. The dissertation was an anthropological investigation into amplified sound in South India.4 Karel’s background in anthropology has been an important factor and influence in his recordings. It is most evident in the phonographer’s methodical and detailed approach to his craft. Karel released an album in 2011 entitled, Swiss Mountain Transport Systems, which includes nine-­‐tracks with titles such as, “Simplon Pass”, the name of a high mountain pass that connects the Pennine and Lepontine Alps. Another track is entitled, “Scuol—Motta Naluns.” Scuol is a Swiss municipality on the far eastern side of the country and Motta Naluns is the ski area where the mountain transport system operates. Karel makes no attempt to obscure the sources of these recordings and instead offers very precise titles, which may lend to an initial conception of these works as anthropological documents. The names are so precise that if a listener wanted to visit these locations and make their own recordings, with the help of an Internet search engine, they could easily find their way. Karel also includes detailed information about these recordings in the liner notes, such as when he recorded them, what kind of microphone he used, and the transport system that they were taken on. Karel even maintains his seemingly documentary objectivity after he makes his recordings, they generally seem to be avoid an editing process: animal sounds, 3 Ibid. 4 “Ernst Karel,” The Film Study Center, accessed April 28, 2015, http://filmstudycenter.org/ernst_karel.html. Disciglio, 4 distant bells, and passing chatter all make their way onto the 78-­‐minute CD. For each track on Swiss Mountain Transport Systems, listeners are offered more than the sound of a cable car or gondola, they are offered a record of the entire sonic atmosphere of the mountain, in this case the random chatter from a passing cable car, a birdcall, a plane or bell in the distance, all heard from the perspective of a cable car or gondola rider for example. For Swiss Mountain Transport Systems, the album’s construction further emphasizes these connections by way of its archival structure. The recording artist chose nine different cable-­‐car systems throughout Switzerland, made a single recording at each location, and constructed nine separate tracks, each with detailed information regarding the equipment used, the location of the recording, and the transport system lending to the experience. Together these pieces stand as a small documentary archive of mountain transport systems. Karel does not limit his scope to one mountain, or one transport system. Instead he confidently takes his perspective, makes the recording, and then moves on to the next location. Upon listening to Swiss Mountain Transport Systems, listeners may be struck by the intricacies that these recordings exhibit. These recordings stand as testaments of the simultaneously natural and unnatural environment that exists on these mountains. They are documents of the crossroads between the natural: snow, wind, birds, etc.; and the artificial: machinery, tools, helicopters, etc., in a very specific environment. The layers of powerful droning machinery, distant bells, passing voices, and birds singing in the distance, reveal the natural and unnatural meshing together quite beautifully in these environments. The artificial does not become obtrusive or abrasive; instead it integrates itself into these Swiss mountain environments and finds its own frequency. Disciglio, 5 Beside their methodology, these works are hoisted into a documentary realm in the context of their association with the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard. The lab’s website reveals that their interest in “audiovisual media,” stems from their opposition to “the traditions of art that are not deeply infused with the real.”5 We can see this influence occurring in Karel’s work at the rate that it avoids manipulation. Karel does not edit out the environment around these transport systems; instead they are left intact, preserving the recording in its original form. Another figure whose work at face value seems to fall under a documentary umbrella is Douglas Quin. Quin has released a repertoire of work whose titles seem to postulate them as documents. In 1998, Quin released a seven-­‐track album entitled, “Antarctica.” Quin’s background in acoustic ecology (particularly with the World Soundscape Project) contributes to the album’s documentary aesthetic. At face value the album can come across as sonic documentation of different sites in Antarctica. Quin’s track titles are even more descriptive than Karel’s; one example is the last track on the album, entitled, “At The Sea Edge (Underwater Recording Of Leopard Seals, Weddell Seals And Orcas).” In reference to his work, Quin claims, “[t]he process of field recording and composition involves cultivating an empathetic identification with nature, with the understanding that this is an inherited basis of our humanity," revealing that Quin wants these recordings to foment a healthy rapport between humanity and the natural world. 6 Quin often employs hydrophones to make his recordings, which, allow him to record audio in a medium (water) that the human ear does not typically access, offering new 5 “Sensory Ethnography Lab,” Harvard Univesity, accessed April 28, 2015, http://sel.fas.harvard.edu/. 6 “Douglas Quin,” Earth/Ear, accessed April 28, 2015, http://earthear.com/quin.html. Disciglio, 6 perspectives to his audience and subsequently increasing the possibility of achieving an affinity with them.7 It would be a shame if these recordings were equalized, for the sounds of these underwater environments are intrinsically rich and complex. The weddell seals that Quin captures sound like the most advanced synthesizers available. If listeners have never heard what these creatures sound like, they would never guess that they created the sounds they were hearing. By bringing more attention to these sea creatures and introducing new information about them, Quin seeks to induce empathy from his listeners, by offering greater insight into the complexities of these mammals and the sounds they produce. If no information was available, then it would be a lot easier to write off these complex mammals or forget about them, but by making these recordings and letting them radiate their intrinsic complexities and intricacies, Quin has expressed his own empathetic sentiment, in the hopes that others will feel the same. If one only based their conceptions of Karel and Quin’s work on their titles, and their scientific and documentary footing, then these works would surely be labeled as documents but one will never know how aesthetically concerned these recordings are until one listens. Field recordings require close listening; their documentary structure can easily fool listeners who do not pay close enough attention to the minute variable factors that make a particular recording unique and interesting, such as time, perspective, framing, location, and so forth. Photography operates in similar terms, if a viewer does not look closely, they may overlook the aesthetic elements that the photographer implemented to create the image. 7 A hydrophone is an underwater microphone. Disciglio, 7 II. THE AESTHETIC DIMENSION Some of the most prominent sound artists and musicians today are exploring the aesthetic possibilities of the field recording, which has lead to some incredibly stimulating sonic investigations. In analyzing these artists, musicians, and theoretical investigations it becomes clear that field recordings achieve a lot more than their documentary nature might suggest. Like photographers, these sound artists have began producing works that have stimulated the revelation of the aesthetic properties of their medium. In analyzing the artistic implications of a number of field recordings, I will reveal that field recordings cannot ever fully avoid the hand of the artist and that they are instead art objects that happen to have integral layers of reference. The aesthetic dimension of field recordings is activated in a number of ways: the researcher’s decision on what to record, how to record it, when to record it, how many microphones they will use, what kinds of microphones they will use, where they will place the microphone(s), whether or not they equalize or process the final recording, and a number of other variables all inevitably play a role in the particular rendering that a recording artist offers. I stand with Spanish art Francisco Lopez in his belief that, “even if we don’t subtract or add anything to the recording, we cannot avoid imposing on it our version of what we consider to be reality.”8 That is, I do not believe that a field recording can ever stand as an objective representation or can ever be separate from the recording artist who made it. The recording artist inevitably imprints their own perception of reality into their recordings throughout the entire recording process. 8 Francisco Lopez, “Profound Listening and Environmental Sound Matter,” in Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music 2004, ed. Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner (New York: Continuum, 2004), 84. Disciglio, 8 The work coming out of the Sensory Ethnography Lab’s (SEL) at Harvard has been decisive in convincing me that a recording artist can preserve a close connection with the intrinsic documentary scope of the phonograph and still produce a work of art. For a number of the recordings on Swiss Mountain Transport Systems, Karel used a dimensional stereo microphone, a microphone that attaches to the recording artist’s head. This microphone allowed Karel to immerse himself in these environments to the greatest possible degree, for it freed him of any physical restrictions (by way of equipment). It also allows Karel to offer perhaps the most humanistic (in terms of perspective) recording of these transport systems possible. Perhaps some of the sounds we are hearing are actually originating from Karel’s body? If this is the case, then Karel has actually taken the steps to reproduce the aural experience of riding these mountain lifts to the most mimetic degree, for they even take into account the sounds of one’s own body in the overall sonorous experience. But if we listen to the pieces carefully, it is difficult to simply write them off as documents. They are rich with content. Sounds of the machinery and the operation transportation systems are complex, they maintain a certain periodicity, that is occasionally interrupted or rather enriched with sounds of passing cars or distant helicopters. Their subjectivity is especially evident in their uniqueness. Another recording artist could never replicate these pieces. That is to say, they would never be able to perfectly align all of the variables that Karel has initiated. Following “Swiss Mountain Transport System”, Karel recorded another piece the same year entitled, Materials Recovery Facility. Karel described the recordings as being, “[composed] with location recordings from the Casella Waste Systems facility in Charlestown, MA, USA. This is where commingled (‘single stream’) recyclables collected by Disciglio, 9 various surrounding municipalities and institutions are brought for sorting.”9 When listening to Materials Recovery Facility, the first thing that is evident, is that what one is hearing, is a small crop of a much longer recording. In discussing his recording process, Karel alludes to his artistic approach, he states, “I generally keep the recorder running, and perform the recording – creating transitions, beginnings and endings in the process of recording itself.”10 Karel’s statement reveals that subjectivity enters his recordings while they are being recorded, each time Karel decides to begin a recording, end a recording, or insert a transition he is making an aesthetic move. In this way, Karel is not offering listeners with an exact replication of the sonorous atmosphere of this space, he is only offering them sections that have been drawn out by Karel. The next feature of these recordings that one may notice is how aurally stimulating they are. Take for instance the 16th track on the album, “Plastics.” In the piece one can hear an array of complex sounds. The track begins quietly, the first sound a listener will hear is what we can presume to be a sorting machine being turned on. As the machine begins running, two sustained resonant frequencies can be perceived. The resonant frequencies are of both low and high frequencies. After only 13-­‐seconds into the track, frequent, yet random bursts of compressed air begin sounding, which are hard to ignore. Accompanying the compressed air is the delicate and intricate sound of plastic recyclables bumping and rubbing against each other as they are being sorted. After sustaining a fairly constant and droning stream of sound for approximately three-­‐minutes, the sound of compressed air 9 “Listen to Ernst Karel Recordings,” thewire.co.uk, last modified October, 2011, http://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/listen-­‐to-­‐ernst-­‐karel-­‐
recordings?SELECT%20*%20FROM%20request_redirect.. 10 Dan Barrow, Material World: Ernst Karel Sorts Through the Sounds of Recycling, The Wire, October 1, 2012. http://ek.klingt.org/images/Karel_TheWire-­‐344-­‐oct2012.pdf. Disciglio, 10 slowly dwindles and listeners are left in a more minimal sonorous atmosphere that is sustained by the same resonant frequencies that initiated the track. As the sorting machine continues resonating a complex hum, the distant, occasional sound of recycling trucks reversing and overworked machines rattling can be hard. After allowing the recording to play for another two-­‐minutes, the sorting machine is turned off and listeners are left with another 30-­‐seconds of room tone. Karel is pretty open about how he sees these works operating; he claims he is, “much more interested in making sound pieces that stand alone as sound pieces,” a claim that offers insight into Karel’s belief that these recordings are unique and cannot simply be reproduced. 11 Karel’s recording “Plastics” reveals that the recording artist has not simply arbitrarily walked through this facility, pressing record as he pleases. Instead Karel reveals that the whole experience is recorded. In analyzing this track it is apparent that a lot of subjectivity is involved in making these recordings. Karel carefully chooses when the recording begins. In the case of “Plastics,” the recording begins with the activation of a sorting machine. The activation leads to a dense sonorous atmosphere that is quickly complicated with random bursts of compressed air. When the compressed air stops sounding, the composition does not end. Karel keeps the recording going and listeners are offered a delicate sustained atmosphere of resonant frequencies that emit from the sorting machine for an additional two-­‐minutes. The sorting machines is eventually powered down and Karel again opts to keep recording. For the final 30-­‐seconds listeners can hear the resonant frequencies of the space that the recording was made in and the distant sound of beeping, reversing trucks. Karel’s decision of when and how to frame this recording 11 Ibid. Disciglio, 11 becomes incredibly significant in the conception of this work. This composition does not simply frame one process, i.e., the sound of a sorting machine. Instead Karel widens the frame and allows a number of elements into the frame. It does not seek to single out a specific process, rather it employs careful aesthetic decisions to perceive how these machines interact and come together to establish the sonorous atmosphere. Karel’s work takes on another artistic dimension in the sense that Karel creates conceptual footing for these recordings to rest on. Karel describes the recordings as being “sounds of a very specific human situation, [… that could be a record of] the development and production of these complex materials in the first place, […] human behaviors and tendencies, [and] strategies devised to address them.”12 Karel’s description of his own work reveals that these recordings are meant to be documents of a greater system that Karel hopes to inform his listener on. This is how Karel’s work becomes an ontological investigation; it seeks to gain an understanding into humanity’s relation to consumption, waste, and renewal by way of submitting to them an aural rendering of that reality. By recording and composing segments of reality that in some way reflect on larger metaphysical systems at work, Karel and the SEL can purportedly advance their knowledge (as well as the knowledge of the listeners) of how these environments arise, how they disappear, and more importantly how humanity is related to these environments.13 But it is important to note that this is only occurring due to the fact that Karel is making his own 12 Ibid. 13 Whether or not these recordings actually do offer any ontological insight is left to be said, and should be determined by each listener; I personally did not feel moved in regards to waster, renewal, and consumption after hearing them. In my opinion they seem much more successful as aesthetic sonic objects. Disciglio, 12 image, his own rendering, and is implementing his own perspective of reality in order to facilitate this recording. Another artist that is striking in his revelation of the aesthetically engaged aspects of the field recording is Japanese recording artist Toshiya Tsunoda. Tsunoda has been making field recordings for about 20 years, and his work never fails to impress. Most of his recordings are minimal in their sounding. There is often not a lot going on, but the sounds that are present, are dense and moving, and may sound foreign to the ear. The artist admits that he is most interested in “describing the experience of landscape,” a reflection that is surely influenced by his study of oil painting at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. 14 But many of Tsunoda’s recordings are made in sonic environments that living beings do not have access to. Take for instance Tsunoda’s 2001 piece “Drum” off of Extract From Field Recordings Archive #3: Solid Vibration, the last CD in a three-­‐CD series that investigated the aural perception of vibrations through solid objects and different spaces. “Drum” was made with a contact microphone, which was placed on a metal drum to record the resonant frequencies of the object. Drum” alludes to Tsunoda’s interest in investigating how different objects shape the transmission of sound waves. In “Drum,” a deep low frequency almost begins to sound like wind blowing. Other ambient resonant frequencies complicate the sound and it slowly shifts and evolves as the track pushes forward. The use of a contact microphone in this instance has allowed Tsunoda to offer sounds that are not accessible to listeners in the first place. Our only access to these sonic atmospheres is via the recording artist, unless we 14 Toshiya Tsunoda, "Field Recording and Experimental Music Scene,” Ertsword (blog), July 7, 2009, http://erstwords.blogspot.com/2009/07/field-­‐recording-­‐and-­‐experimental-­‐
music.html. Disciglio, 13 happen to walk around with contact microphones on a regular basis. In this way, Tsunoda makes us rely on him more as a documentary source, yet these recordings cannot simply be called documents. Tsunoda’s aesthetic decision to implement a contact microphone makes for a composition that is very ambiguous in its minimalism, but very intriguing in its foreign sound. His placement of that microphone, the time that he takes the recording, and the duration of that recording all play into the overall work. The piece runs longer than the other tracks on the album, perhaps this is so that listeners can fully take in all of the resonant frequencies that emerge with this track. Tsunoda is careful not to choose objects that would bore his listeners, such as fans, or refrigerators, instead he chooses objects that have a dynamic range of resonant frequencies, making these works especially interesting. Tsunoda’s pieces are striking in the sense that they rely heavily on the apparatus, more than many field-­‐recording artists. In addition to his contact microphone recordings, a number of his other works utilize compact microphones, that he places inside bottles and other restricted spaces, effectively offering sounds that living beings do not have access to. Similarly these recordings offer insight into “[s]paces that might have been dead, neutral, boring or forgotten [that subsequently] are activated by Tsunoda’s mics, [and] transformed into mobile, dynamic environments.”15 Although these pieces could be seen as documents of sounds that living beings do not have access to, that perspective would sell Tsunoda’s work short. As Villem Flusser claims, “the tool side of the camera [or apparatus] is ‘done with’, the human being [or artist] is only engaged with the play side of the camera.”16 In Tsunoda’s work there is so much going on that it is apparent that the artist is heavily 15 "Quiet Storms: Toshiya Tsunoda,” thewire.co.uk, last modified January 1, 2011, http://www.thewire.co.uk/in-­‐writing/essays/quiet-­‐storms_toshiya-­‐tsunoda. 16 Vilém Flusser, “The Apparatus,” in Towards a Philosophy of Photography (London: Reaktion Books, 2000), 29. Disciglio, 14 engaged with the “play side” of his recording device. This recording, like much of Tsunoda’s work, has a unique quality about it, a definable style. The work sounds dark, cinematic, and full of mystery, almost like an aural version of a Kafka book or a David Lynch Film. They invoke questions and leave us with a general feeling of unsettled curiosity. The recordings may stand as documents of sounds that are often inaccessible, but they simultaneously engage a number of aesthetic decisions that are configured to make sonically rich recordings. In the next segment of this chapter I will reveal how certain concepts that have arisen in sonic theory (specifically surrounding field recording) are symptomatic of the general acceptance that field recordings are intrinsically artistic. We will look at a theoretical grounding that has arisen in light of the field recording and I will reveal how its presence in sonic theory is symptomatic of the intrinsic aestheticization of field recordings. German sound artist Andreas Bick has described this inquiry as a “path from hearing to listening,” but I will refer to it as pure listening. 17 I hope to reveal that field recording’s basis in the investigation into pure listening is symptomatic of the inevitable aestheticization that field recordings are subject to. When most people walk down a city street, they are in a state of hearing. They may hear horns honking, people yelling and talking, engines and machines running, or subways traveling underneath them. But they are not actually processing or thinking about these sounds. They are simply being subjected to them in the least aural dimension possible; they are hearing them as symbols or products of their sonic origin. One hears a beep and automatically thinks car. But when one is listening, they are not perceiving sounds in a 17 Andreas Bick, "Listening Is Making Sense," Field Notes, no. 2 (2008): 44, accessed April 28, 2015, http://fieldnotes.gruenrekorder.de/?p=archive&lang=en. Disciglio, 15 symbolic dimension, they are instead as Andreas Bick points out, perceiving “the peculiar qualities of the sound itself.”18 Bick continues, “[t]he sounds are listened to for their own sake, as sounds.”19 Bick describes this perception as a “path from hearing to listening,” but I will refer to it as pure listening. 20 Bick was surely influenced by Schaeffer and Musique Concrète’s conception of “acousmatic listening” which emphasized the importance of sound manipulation in order to avoid any association with a sound’s source.21 But instead of assuming we can only achieve alternate modes of aural perception if a sound’s origin is negated, or distorted from its layers of reference, Bick sees all field recordings as having the capacity to induce an alternate mode of listening. It is my belief that this new investigation into the alternate modes of listening that can be induced by unprocessed field recordings reveals that critics and theorists have acknowledged the integral artistic dimension of the field recording. I will look at sound artist and theorist Francisco Lopez, a figure who has revealed that field 18 Ibid, 47. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid, 44. 21 Schaeffer denoted that his goal for Musique Concrète was to induce “acousmatic listening.” “Acousmatic listening” is a mode of perception that does not include or induce any visual conceptions for a sound’s source; instead “acousmatic listening” occurs when one perceives sounds as a “sonorous object,”21 “without reference to its source… [one that] attempts to ‘reduce’ (separate or distill) signal from source.”21 Radio became precisely of interest to Schaeffer for that exact reason; it was a sort of veiling of sound’s origin. By stretching out, reversing, and cutting/reassembling tapes of recorded sound, Schaeffer and other Musique Concrète members created some of the most unique noises ever heard. In this way, Musique Concrète’s sound manipulation was actually a kind of aestheticization of recorded sound. Musique Concrète’s persistent push for sound manipulation is significant because Musique Concrète was one of the earliest examples of field recordings adaptation into experimental music, which suggests that initially field recordings may have perhaps been too much of a document for experimental music and sound art practices. But does the conception or knowledge of where a sound comes from, destroy any ability to receive it as a “sonorous object”, or in other words, perceive the sound in and of itself? Or in other words, can field recordings be aestheticized without destroying all perceptions of their origin? Disciglio, 16 recordings, in their most referential state, can be aestheticized to the degree that they can draw attention to the purely sonorous aspects of a field recording. Francisco Lopez, an internationally recognized sound artist that has released a number of works which reveal the careful aestheticization that goes into composing a field recording. In 2009, the artist released a seventy-­‐plus minute field recording of a rainforest in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica entitled, La Selva. The recordings length should catch your attention, although not as long as Andy Warhol’s 1964 film Empire, which ran for over 8 hours, Lopez’s La Selva is still quite long. The length of La Selva suggests that either Lopez did a lot of post-­‐recording editing, or that Lopez took a really long recording, and cut out 72-­‐minutes worth of it. The latter would suggest that the piece is more of a document, one that was not intended to be altered, but in analyzing Lopez’s own writings it becomes clear that the artist’s intentions were rooted in much different terms. In an essay Lopez published in 2010, “Environmental Sound Matter” Lopez describes La Selva as “an immersion into the sound environments of a tropical rain forest.”22 Lopez’s works and writings reveal that he is particularly interested in allowing for a kind of refined listening, sentiments that are similar to Schaeffer and Bick. Lopez claims that his recordings are a result of what he calls his “focus on and access [to] the inner world of sounds.”23 Lopez believes he is able to offer a refined listening experience through, “a perceptional shifting from recognition and differentiation of sound sources.”24 This perhaps explains why La Selva is so long. Lopez seems to be employing long duration as a way of distracting 22 Francisco Lopez, Liner Notes, La Selva, V2, 1998, compact disc. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. Disciglio, 17 listeners away from these sound’s sources and instead shift them toward a more purely sonorous and purely aesthetic experience. Lopez continually states in his essay that he is not interested in making recordings of specific animals or of specific aspects of an environment, instead his wishes lie in his desire to record the entire environment.25 This belief is actually rooted in his desire to provide more of a documentary item. Lopez believes that in dividing the environment, that is, single out a particular animal sound, we are offering a fractured perception of that reality. But La Selva’s slow progression and encompassing environment reveals that field recordings documentary dimension can actually aid in the aesthetic dimension of the field recording. It immerses listeners deep within the sonorous experience and distracts them from these sounds source. By staying truer to reality, Lopez reveals the aesthetic dimensions that intrinsically exist within a field recording. CONCLUSION In addressing whether or not their work is scientific, objective, or documentary, most recording artists will tell you themselves, that their work is subjective, aesthetically activated, and artistically composed. Recording artists, Hiroki Sasajima reflected this common belief when he claimed, “I would really like to make it clear that my work is 25 Ibid. “Many animal species appear in the recordings of La Selva and they have even been identified (part II), but none of them has been the focus of the processes of recording and editing. It is precisely the way of proceeding through these processes what makes the essential difference: traditional bioacoustics -­‐justified by its own scientifc goal-­‐ tend to isolate the calls, songs or whatever other sounds of a certain species from the 'background' sound of its environment. Both the recording and the editing processes are directed towards this isolation and even further enhancement of the contrast between the foreground species and its background.” Disciglio, 18 absolutely not created as ‘document’… [m]y works are created from something subjective, something personal.”26 But in analyzing the work of a number of recording artists it seems as if the duality between art and document in phonography is not as black and white as it may seem. We can never definitively fully say that a field recording is purely a document or that a field recording is purely art, because it always intrinsically possesses dimensions of both. Field recordings are inherently documentary in the way that the act of field recording is a process that takes from reality and possesses layers of reference to reality. Field recordings are fundamentally art in the sense that from the beginning of the recording process, the recording artist makes subjective decisions concerning the way in which they craft their recording. Their subjectivity will always inevitably impart their vision of reality into the recording. We should not attempt to sustain the dichotomy between art and document, instead we should conceive of field recordings as art objects, which although are innately referential, can never avoid an impartment of stylistic decisions from the recording artist. 26 Cathy Lane and Angus Carlyle, In In the Field: The Art of Field Recording (Devon: Uniform Books, 2013), 126. Disciglio, 19 Work Cited: -­‐-­‐ Barrow, Dan. “Material World: Ernst Karel Sorts Through the Sounds of Recycling.” The Wire. October 1, 2012. http://ek.klingt.org/images/Karel_TheWire-­‐344-­‐oct2012.pdf. -­‐-­‐ Bick, Andreas. "Listening Is Making Sense." Field Notes, no. 2 (2008): 38-­‐49. Accessed April 28, 2015. http://fieldnotes.gruenrekorder.de/?p=archive&lang=en. -­‐-­‐ “Douglas Quin.” Earth/Ear. Accessed April 28, 2015. http://earthear.com/quin.html. -­‐-­‐ Dunaway, David King. “The Oral History Review.” The Oral History Reciew 15, no. 1 (1987), 21-­‐42. -­‐-­‐ “Ernst Karel.” The Film Study Center. Accessed April 28, 2015. http://filmstudycenter.org/ernst_karel.html. -­‐-­‐ Lane Cathy, and Angus Carlyle, In the Field: The Art of Field Recording. Devon: Uniform Books, 2013. -­‐-­‐ Lopez, Francisco. Liner Notes. La Selva. V2. 1998, compact disc. -­‐-­‐ Lopez, Francisco. “Profound Listening and Environmental Sound Matter.” In Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music 2004, edited by Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner, 82-­‐87. New York: Continuum, 2004. -­‐-­‐ Flusser, Vilém. Towards a Philosophy of Photography. London: Reaktion Books, 2000. -­‐-­‐ "Quiet Storms: Toshiya Tsunoda.” thewire.co.uk. Last modified January 1, 2011. http://www.thewire.co.uk/in-­‐writing/essays/quiet-­‐storms_toshiya-­‐tsunoda. -­‐-­‐ “Sensory Ethnography Lab.” Harvard Univesity. Accessed April 28, 2015. http://sel.fas.harvard.edu/.