Ruidos y susurros de las vanguardias - Medialab Prado

5- The practical difficulties for the construction of these instruments are not very
important. Once the mechanical principle that produces a noise is found, its pitch
can be modified through the application of the general laws of acoustics. It shall
be achieved with a decrease or an increase of the speed, for example, if the
instrument has a rotating movement, and with a variety of size or tension of the
sound parts, if the instrument does not have a rotating movement.
6 - It will not be through a succession of imitative noises of life, but by means of a
fantastic association of these varied timbres, and these varied rhythms, the new
orchestra will obtain the most complex and novel sound emotions. Therefore
each instrument shall have to offer the possibility to change pitches, and shall
have a greater or smaller extension.
7- The variety of noises is infinite. If nowadays, perhaps when we have thousands
of different machines, we are able to differentiate thousands of different noises,
tomorrow, when the new machines multiply, we will be able to distinguish ten,
twenty or thirty thousand different noises, not simply by imitation, but by
combining them according to our fantasy.
8- We invite the brilliant and audacious young musicians to carefully watch all the
noises, to understand the multiple rhythms in them, their main pitch and the
secondary pitches. And then compare the different timbres of the noises with the
timbres of sounds, they will be convinced that the latter are much more numerous
that the former. This will provide us not only the understanding, but also the taste
and the passion for noises. Our sensibility, multiplied after the achievement of the
futurist eyes, will finally have futurist ears. Thus, the motors and the machines of
our industrial cities could one day be wisely intoned, with the purpose of making a
heady orchestra of noises from each factory .
Dear Pratella, I submit to your futurist talent my proposals, and invite you to
discuss them. I am not a musician by profession: I do not have then acoustical
predilections, nor works to defend. I am a futurist painter who projects to the
outside, in a very loved and studied art, his will to renew everything. And
consequently, bolder than a professional musician would ever be, as my apparent
incompetence does not worry me and I am convinced that audacity has all the
rights and all the possibilities, I have been able to sense the great renovation of
music through the Art of Noises.
Peter Bosch & Simone Simons
Ordinella Preparata (for Luigi Russolo) 2004
"In some wonderful printing machines it is exceptionally interesting to note the
very fast repeated noise with other slower noises with different timbres, and other
deeper, less fast and solemn".
As stated by Luigi Russolo in his 1916 book “L'Arte dei Rumori” [1]. Russolo points
out that futurist musicians should replace the limited variety of timbres of the
instruments in the orchestra by the infinite variety of noise timbres, reproduced
with the appropriate mechanisms, somehow announcing the new discipline of
Sound Art. Our work has been associated quite frequently with the futurist
movement. On one hand, by its archaic aspect, on the other hand, because it is
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really an art of noises with Russolo's spirit. Our first work with these characteristic
was "Was der Wind zum Klingen bringt" (1989/90): Forty-eight vacuum cleaners
throwing air. This air blows from rubber sleeves in PVC and steel tubes, producing
voluminous and extremely organic sounds. There are four different groups of
sound, each group with its own sound characteristics. The analogies with
Russolo's Intonarumori, built between 1913-14, are evident. However, there are
at the same time many differences, simply by the world of time difference that
separates us and the development of media and scientific knowledge that has
taken place in this time. The operation of "Was der Wind…" is controlled by a
computer that starts and stops the vacuum cleaners according to a score. This
autogenerated score is based on the principle of "cellular robots" developed in the
United States at the beginning of the 1950's by Von Neumann and Ulam [2]. An
apparently unforeseeable sequence of timbres, harmonies and changes of
volume are combined to create the illusion of a living object. Our next work
"Electric Swaying Orchestra" (1991-92) was associated with the futurists for its
grotesque motions, its industrial inspiration and by its sound which reminds the
propagandist music of this time. Here also the underlying technique and theory
have to do less with the futurist movement. The Electric Swaying Orchestra uses
pendulums parametrically controlled, a field very well known within the framework
of the theories of order and chaos [3]. Six pendulums activate by the upward and
downward movement of the axes that hold them. As the behavior of the
pendulums depends on the oscillation frequency of those axes, an electrical
motor with variable speed is used. For this reason, the pendulums generate an
exceptional variety of movements; what begins as a traditional swinging may
become an irregular and unforeseeable movement that ends up in an amazing,
complete and energetic rotation. A microphone or a loudspeaker are coupled at
the end of each pendulum and from the loudspeakers one can listen to electronic
music (samples of metal instruments). There is a complex relationship between
the movements of the pendulums and this music. The complexity and
"unforseeability" of the system ensure that each interpretation is unrepeatable in
movement as well as in sound. In 1993 we began a long series of "vibratory
works": Constructions built with metallic springs and moved by oscillating motors
[4]. Although the sound of these works (in many cases the "clattering" of different
objects) and the means to obtain sound agree with Russolo's ideas, in general
they resemble less the futurist age by their more abstract and less industrialist
appearance. By coincidence, our most recent work of this series, the scraping
hayforks of "Último Esfuerzo Rural" (2004), seem to share a common interest with
Russolo, although with one important difference: While we try to reassess the
rural mind as a counterbalance to the global mind, the result of contemporary
scheming in the Internet, Russolo points out that the countryside had already lost
interest at the beginning of the 20th century.
"and here it is possible to demonstrate that the so poetized silences with which the
countryside cures too anxious nerves of city life are made up of an endless variety
of noises, and how these noises have their timbres, their rates and a very
sensitive enarmonic scale in their tones. It has not been yet stated or verified that
these noises are not a very important part (even the most important) of the
emotions that accompany the beauty by certain views, the smile of some
landscapes! But let's leave nature and country apart (without these it would
completely silent) and let's enter a noisy modern city...."