Nadir - Excessive Redundancy

BACKGROUND Historically music has been distinguished from noise. This is based on notions of 'tonal' sounds as music amd and 'atonal' sounds as 'noise'. These are clearly untenable generalisations following the work of John Cage, and others, where all sounds are, at least potentially, music. Synonymous with this notion of music as heard (by the listener), not made (by an author), is scholarship on the agency of 'audience' in a work of art. Audiences are positioned as active interpreters of meaning rather than passive receivers (Barthes 1967; Hall 1980). This approach is not commonly applied to music. Instead, it is often assumed that music as communication is stable and discrete. CONTRIBUTION Nadir is a musical project involving Alex White and myself, which has included the production and release of an album and a series of performances. The work Nadir investigates the relationship between signals and noise in music. Alex uses an analog modular synthesiser to produce oscillating signals which I manipulate in real time with a Max/MSP based software patch. We create experiences of sensory overload which the audience must navigate as listeners in order to find and hear their own 'music' within this stimulus. SIGNIFICANCE Nadir, and in particular the album Excessive Redundancy, produces a 'noise' music that does not focus on volume and transgression but instead investigates and enables the agency of the listener as interpreter. The production of the album was supported by an Australia Council New Work grant. The launch for the record at 107 Projects, Sydney, attracted 50 people. Curator Lloyd Honeybrook launched the album in Melbourne at Make It Up Club (July 19 2016), with 70 attendees. The record has been positively reviewed by Massimo Ricci at Touching Extremes. Our preceding online only EP was featured in The Quietus. We performed an 8 channel version of the work at the Australasian Computer Music Conference at the University of Technology, Sydney in 2015.

研究背景
长期以来，音乐与噪音被加以区分，其依据是将“调性声音”视作音乐、“无调性声音”视作噪音的认知。但在约翰·凯奇（John Cage）等人的研究之后，这类概括显然站不住脚——事实上所有声音至少都具备成为音乐的潜在可能。
这种将音乐视为聆听者所感知而非创作者所创作的理念，与艺术作品中“受众能动性”的学术研究一脉相承：受众被定位为意义的主动阐释者，而非被动接收者（罗兰·巴特（Barthes）1967；斯图尔特·霍尔（Hall）1980）。但该研究视角并未被广泛应用于音乐领域，人们通常默认音乐作为传播载体是稳定且独立的。

研究贡献
《Nadir》是由亚历克斯·怀特（Alex White）与笔者共同参与的音乐项目，涵盖了一张专辑的制作与发行，以及一系列现场演出。该作品旨在探讨音乐中信号与噪音的关系：亚历克斯使用模拟模块化合成器生成振荡信号，我则通过基于Max/MSP的软件补丁对信号进行实时操控。我们营造出感官过载的聆听体验，受众需以聆听者的身份进行解读，方能在这一刺激素材中寻得属于自身的“音乐”。

研究意义
《Nadir》，尤其是专辑《Excessive Redundancy》，创作了一类全新的“噪音”音乐：其核心并非聚焦于音量与越界，而是探究并赋予聆听者作为阐释者的能动性。
该专辑的制作获得了澳大利亚委员会新作品资助项目的支持。专辑在悉尼107艺术空间的首发活动吸引了50名观众；策展人劳埃德·霍尼布鲁克（Lloyd Honeybrook）于2016年7月19日在墨尔本Make It Up Club举办了专辑首发式，到场观众达70人。《Touching Extremes》的马西莫·里奇（Massimo Ricci）对该专辑给予了正面评价；我们此前仅在线发行的EP曾登上《The Quietus》的推荐榜单。2015年，我们在悉尼科技大学举办的澳大拉西亚计算机音乐会议上展示了该作品的8声道版本。