Recently I’ve been reading about Gustav Metzger’s Auto-Destructive art and been thinking about how I could create a sound piece focusing on similar rationale; the irreversible destruction of a piece over time. In a transcription of a talk Metzger gave he highlights the ten main concepts of his form of art. Auto-Destructive art was created with sculptures in mind, materials used to construct buildings were often incorporated. Thermal activity is used to produce new forms and colours. Although these may not be replicable in a sound piece I think many other key concepts can be transferred over easily using the right medium.

Last term’s module, Sonic Doing and Thinking introduced me to radio listening and radio as a medium in general. I had an idea that I could create a piece based off the auto-destructive art rationale by having two setups of a radio transmitter attached to a microphone and radio transceiver which is attached to speakers placed in different locations. A short message can then be read out into one of the microphones attached to the transmitter. From there the signal will travel to the other setup where the transceiver picks up the signal and plays the audio message through speakers into the microphone attached to the transmitter there, which then broadcasts the signal back to the origin of the message. This will hopefully create some kind of radio feedback loop where the message eventually completely distorts and disappears becoming unlistenable. I was thinking of using microphones as I want new noises to be added to the signal slowly obscuring the original message with everyday sounds. Maybe having one of the setups placed in a busy urban location and one in a park may create interesting listening as well.

This fits with the ADA rationale of an irreversible process taking place, where the audio can never be recovered to its original state. The proposal also fits into the idea of random activity. with the use of mics allowing for the introduction of everyday sounds into the radio loop there is a great deal of random uncontrolled activity affecting how the piece will sound. And lastly, The aesthetic of revulsion. The basic principle is that by the presentation of something wholly unenjoyable to take in and below the threshold of social acceptance, the artist induces a response in the spectator that is wholly or in part, a rejection of the state represented. With the devolution of a message with social importance right now into something unlistenable I believe this can be achieved.