03/04/2013

Alvin Lucier - I am sitting in a room




Original recording from 1969
http://ubumexico.centro.org.mx/sound/source/Lucier-Alvin_Sitting.mp3

"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."

There's a great description of Alvin Lucier's work in Craig Dworkin's essay The Stutter of Form http://eclipsearchive.org/Editor/DworkinStutter.pdf
Alvin Lucier on ubuweb: http://www.ubu.com/sound/lucier.html

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