Ruidos y susurros de las vanguardias - Medialab Prado

Nogorov (1919), Rostov (1921), Baku (1922) and finally Moscow (1923). The
work was a tribute to the thousands of sounds that Avraamov listened in the
storming of the Winter Palace with the October Revolution, and which for him not
only had freed the proletariat, but also the sounds of the machines which were
enslaved like signals of an alienated capitalist work and which now sounded in
complete freedom and joy.
There is no recording of any of these macroconcerts, just some photographs
published in a book of that time, and a text written by Avraamov that deals with his
intentionality and the constituent elements of the symphony, like the " steam
whistle machine" which consisted of the assembly of a set of sirens (from 20 to 25)
musically tuned in order to interpret the anthem “The International”. Our research
group believed appropriate to reconstruct the sonority of this work with present
means, given the spread of this work that makes its accomplishment complex
(technical as well as ideological), by using the sound assembly of its different
parts with the computer, gathering separately the sound sources referred to and
processing its sound space from movement and the reverberation of a city.
Regarding the "steam whistle machine" it has been performed by means of MIDI
from a sample sound from steam sirens. Likewise, as an update Avraamov's aim,
a model of portable sirens with compressed air has been created to be used in
nowadays public demonstrations. An example of Avraamov's continuity in Sound
Art is the "Conciertos de Ciudades" by Llorenç Barber and specially his concert
"Naumaquia a Isaac Peral" (30-10-1993) performed in Cartagena in the urban
and marine space with sirens of boats, bells, drums, cannons and fireworks.
Another work that the research group has reproduced is the sound work applied
to the cubofuturist theater or ballet, like the "Mechanical Dances" (1923) of Nikolai
Foregger's MastFor Studio. Where the mechanical movements of the actors
representing a drive chain and a chain saw have been performed again; all this
accompanied by the sounds of a "Noise Orchestra" consisting of boxes of broken
bottles, cardboard tubes, and a whole series of industrial elements.
Finally, we have reproduced the experiments of the "Laboratory of Hearing"
(1916) by Dziga Vertov, where provided with a rudimentary phonograph, a 1910
model Pathephone wax disc recorder (purchased in Saint Petersburg) he went to
a waterfall and a sawmill to record their sounds and later on carry out
documentary sound recordings in noise-verbal assemblies, which he called
phonographs and stenographs. Given the difficulty of these rudimentary means
(without microphones and in wax cylinders) we have decided to simulate these
assemblies by means of computers, but preserving the poor quality of these
recording systems.
Vertov's eagerness to "explore life" through the latest technical inventions and
means from the industrial revolution, led him to conceive them with the main
purpose of "discovering and showing the truth" and to make available a
revolutionary weapon for workers. All this led to conceive the Kino-Eye ("what the
eye cannot see") and the Radiopravda (or "radio truth") and the Radio-Ear (the
assembly of "I hear"). With the radio he tried to establish an audio communication
with all the proletariat world-wide, by means of the recording of the sounds at
workplaces and life captured unexpectedly (something like a “factory of facts”), to
later on broadcast them from a network of radio stations so that all the workers
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from different cultures could "be listened to" and "understand each other " . His
manifesto "Radiopravda" (1925) presents all these ideas. Dziga Vertov was not
listened to at that moment and he could not carry out these ideas, but in
subsequent commitment to cinema he materialized them through his "Kino-eye"
("what the eye cannot see"), and with the arrival of sound cinema, he applied his
theories in the movie "Enthuziasm: Simfonia Donbassa" ("Enthusiasm,
Symphony of the Don Basin", 1929-30) where it was used for the first time in
cinema a movable equipment of sound to record location shots, made in this case
in the mines of Donbas, east of Ukraine. The final edition is typical of a composer,
as he conceives a symphony of sounds and images, and applies the concepts
shown in his "Radio-Ear". For that reason, the reconstruction of his radio theories
has been based on the sounds of this film, and our aim is to carry out a more
current version (just as Vertov conceived it) by collecting in real time different
sounds produced in different workplaces: offices, factories, commercial
establishments, agricultural works, homes, etc.
Arseni Avraamov
On the Fifth Anniversary of the October Revolution Instructions for “The
Symphony of Sirens”
"In the morning of the Fifth Anniversary, November 7, all the boats of Gocasp,
Voenflot, and Uzbekcasp, including all the small ships and boats, shall meet in the
pier of the railway station at 7:00 a.m.. All the boats shall receive written
instructions and a group of musicians. Later on, they shall occupy the place
assigned near the customs office pier. The destroyer Dostoyny with the steam
whistle machine and the shallow-draft vessels shall be anchored in front of the
tower.
A 9:00 a.m. the complete fleet shall be in its position. All the movable machines,
local trains and battleships, and repaired steam engines shall arrive at the same
time. The cadets of the courses of the Fourth Regiment, the students of the Azgo
Conservatory, and all the professional musicians shall be in the pier not later than
8:30.
At 10:00, the troops, artillery, machine guns, vehicles and the motor transports
shall take positions according to the orders they have received. The airplanes and
the hydroplanes shall be ready also.
Not later than 10:30, the signalers shall take their position in the regional and
railroad terminals.
The noon cannon has been cancelled.
- The squad of the fireworks shall signal the following motor transports so that they
come and approach the center making all the noise they can: Zykh, Bely Gorod,
Bibi, Abot and Babylon.
- The fifth firing signals the first and second districts of the Black District.
- The tenth firing, the sirens of the commercial offices, Azneft, and the piers.
- The fifteenth firing, the districts, the airplanes taking off. The bells.
- The eighteenth firing, the sirens of the square and the steam engines there. At
the same time, the first company of the Military school playing the march
"Varashavanka" shall go from the square to the piers.
- All the sirens sound and finish with the cannon shot number twenty-five.
- Pause.
- The triple strains of the sirens is accompanied with a "Hurrah" from the piers.
- The steam whistle machine signals the end.