Page under construction
Title: Riders (2024)
Duration: 6’30
Format: Stereo Fixed Media
Similar to electroacoustic music, dub music relies on the creative design of an electronic circuit to form a major part of the compositional process. It’s the relationship between user and technology that I find fascinating and inspiring, especially as we move closer to a technological extension of consciousness.
Electromagnetic technology requires utter human docility and quiescence of mediation such as befits an organism that now wears its brain outside its skull and its nerves outside its hide (p. 63, McLuhan, 1964).
In the 1970’s, custom built studios began to appear in Jamaica, music producers circuit bent hi-fi and lo-fi technologies to radically alter the sound of popular music recordings. The economical pressure of the time meant a lack of studio resources were not readily available. So inventive and explorative practices of studio production and sound system culture emerged. An environment where an experimental culture embraced playfulness and liveliness to form the dub music aesthetic; this ecological approach to electronic music has now become a global phenomena.
Expanding the dub aesthetic further, I continued to experiment with sounds derived only from the original vocal stem. Keeping a source bonded connection with the original material. The restriction of not including other sounds sources meant I could focus on constructing custom-designed sonic processes. These processes enabled me to impart gestural information directly into the medium. By directly shaping the physical properties of sound allowed me to freely express myself. Similar to the process of mixing paint before applying it to the canvas. By placing the material in the hands of the artist leads to interesting and surprising results.
Listening back to each new sonic manifestation, seeking a perceptual connection where the sounds coalesced on differing time scales. Once I heard an event that grabbed my attention I would investigate further by looping and editing the audio alongside the fixed media part. The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance. The serious artist is the only person able to encounter technology with impunity, just because he is an expert aware of the changes in sense perception. (p. 19 McLuhan, 1964).
The process spatially abstracts the semiotic chain, through the dynamism of sound, an ever changing propagation with infinite physical and sensorial possibilities.