Songs with Oscillators
[sonic graphology series]
part of Glossolalia curated by Matt Warren & Colin Langridge
6 May-25 June 2022, Plimsoll Gallery, University of Tasmania & Dark MOFO
‘Singing with Sines I’ (11:30) (2011/2022)
‘Singing with Squares’ (7:50) (2014/2022)
Audio with wall tracings
In Songs with Oscillators Gail explores the connections, interplays and contrasts of the organic voice and the machinic sounds produced by audio oscillators, specifically the sine wave and the square wave. Sine waves are generated with a smooth period of oscillation from minimum to maximum amplitude, while square waves switch instantaneously. Both waveforms express a single frequency (pitch) but their different styles of oscillation give them different timbres. In contrast, the voice is made up of multiple frequencies and it is this that makes it rich and unique. These pieces explore how the quality of these pure tones may inspire different vocal treatments and melodic material.
This exploration treads lightly in the footsteps of pioneering composers such as La Monte Young, with his works exploring the psychoacoustic properties of the harmonic spectrum; and Alvin Lucier with his interplay of sine tones, instruments and acoustic space; but Gail cannot admit to a similar rigour of process. Both pieces begin with minimalist restraint, exploring the interference patterns of the voice and the waveform but gradually give way to the sensualities of harmony and polyphony that emerge from the transactions between the machine and the organism.
The audio works are accompanied by their waveforms rendered as large-scale wall tracings. For Gail, this representation of the composition is a far more meaningful visualisation than the traditional notes on a stave and offers a particular graphic power. The act of tracing this image, by hand, directly onto the walls of the gallery is one of translating the digital back into the analogue, offering a foil to the compositional process which combines the analogue voice with the sine tone in a digital format.
Images 1 & 2: Glossolalia, 2022
Plimsoll Gallery, University of Tasmania. Photo Eden Meure; image 3: courtesy the artist.
Songs with Oscillators 2014
Artmonth: Singing with Sines I & II
13-20 March 2014, Home@735 Gallery, Sydney
Songs with Oscillators 2012
Singing with Sines II: The next ten minutes (2012)
7 July - 26 August 2012, part of In a Silent Way, curated by Matt Warren, CAST Gallery, Hobart
The audio audio component of 'Singing with Sines II' was developed for the group exhibition In A Silent Way also featuring works by Joel Stern, Samaan Fieck, Lawrence English, Darren Cook, Nicholas Bullen, Monika Brooks, Laura Altman There was no wall tracing for this manifestation.
Artist Statement
“There is this sense of something imminent. And what is imminent, we find, is neither the past nor the future, but simply — the next ten minutes…We can go no further than that, and we need go no further.” Morton Feldman, The Anxiety of Art, 1965
The next 10 minutes… is a continuation of my Singing with Sines project. These works are influenced by artists such as Morton Feldman and Alvin Lucier and explore the interaction of the organic grain of the voice and machinic purity of the sine tone. For this new work I used an extremely reduced sound palette of a 160Hz tone and a fragment of one vocal note—all harmonic changes are via pitch shifting. Part one explores sustained tones, the sine performing flawlessly in a manner the voice cannot match. Part two embraces and magnifies the undulations of the vocal tone. In the final part the voice fragment is further segmented and manually re-tuned to form a melodic phrase. Through this process the voice loses almost all trace of its human source.
Songs with Oscillators 2011
Singing with Sines I
3-31 July, 2011, SNO Gallery, Sydney
This way of working interms of combining oscilllator and voice and the incorporation fo a wall-tracing started with the commission from SNO Gallery, to present a work for headphones for the #72 exhibition.