air.ratio
eric la casa | sirr0026
Vital
Weekly 533
By now the name Eric La Casa should
be more or less known, as the man with
the microphone. All of his releases
deal with sounds from our environment.
Recently we discussed a 3"CD of
his that had recordings made in elevators,
and that was a more conceptual approach
than we were used of his. He seems to
be continuing this with his latest offering
'Air.ratio'. Here the sound of mechanical
ventilation systems is the subject.
All of the ventilation systems heard
were recorded in Paris from November
2000 until September 2003. Obviously
these systems make noise, but they are
designed to be as little present as
possible. The space it breaths in, is
also of importance. La Casa leaves it
up to the listener to enjoy this as
a sonic data bank, specific sound study,
a CD of environments or simply as music.
There are thirty three tracks on this
CD, one is silent, two are the other
thirty, compressed to one minute and
the rest are the pure recordings, made
at Radio France, The Francois Mitterand
Library, Centre Pompidou and the European
Hospital Georges Pompidou. I rather
take up La Casa's last point of enjoyment:
to see this as music. Each of
the two minute pieces is a true delight
to hear: mechanical sounding, sometimes
far away, sometimes interfering with
some other device (although none were
recorded on the surface), this is a
totally fascinating journey, that brings
the listener more awareness of every
days sound - either to be regarded
as music or as pollution, even when
such listener is already aware of this
pollution or music. I tend to opt for
the last and listen to the given environment
as music, and try to enjoy it as such.
I even switched off my own home ventilator
a while, when listening to this, and
'mixed' later on a little bit of this
home machine with the CD of La Casa.
Going into public places will never
be the same again. Great sound work.
Phil Zampino |
www.squidsear.com
Sit
quietly in each of your friend's homes,
in your office, in any space that you
have access to. Listen to the unique
sound of the air ducts and ventilation
systems - the heater, central air, a
toilet duct - any where that air is
exchanging, either naturally or by mechanical
means. The sound can be soothing or
cantankerous, demure or disturbing,
but each space has a distinctive soundspace
remarkably unlike the others. Field
recording/constructionist Eric La Casa
has a fascination with these ducts and
ventilation systems, which he refers
to as aeraulic networks.
air.ratio is about the investigation
of these spaces. La Casa explains that
the work isn't strictly scientific,
but that since being drawn to a particularly
interesting bathroom vent in 1994 he's
wanted to document their sonic and musical
qualities. With a boom and a pair of
condenser mikes he chose several locations
in Paris and looked for interesting
sources of ventilation. The goal was
to record the sound as purely as possible,
devoid of other environmental distractions
or external sound movements. In this
he succeeds: the resulting recordings
are sonically rich, fascinating for
their complex overtones and harmonies,
throaty voices, placid countenances
or threatening menace, or for their
sheer presence and hypnotic character.
In all the CD presents 30 two minutes
recordings of ventilation systems. The
listener is taken into a variety of
locations, including an apartment in
Paris, into Radio France, The European
Hospital Georges Pompidou and a contemporary
art center. Two minutes seems a good
length to give the listener time to
understand each sound, but not too long
to become bored by any. La Casa organized
the tracks by classification of ventilation
structure, such as "insulated rectangular
right conduit" or "air-vent
extraction-mechanically controlled ventilation"
(11 examples) but explains that his
sequencing is essentially arbitrary,
and encourages experimentation with
the material for various ends. The 30
recordings are book-ended by a 60 second
composition sequencing all 30 recordings,
normalized into a coherent and quickly
breathing work. The CD ends with a minute
of silence, La Casa hoping that the
listener will clear his head and contemplate
the relationship of sound and musical
construction. A truly fascinating
exhibition.
*Chris Cutler,
rer megacorp*
A
further chapter in the series that explores
ubiquitous and ignored aspects of the
(mostly public) architectural soundscape;
this time it's ventilation units in
France. Eric has recorded some 30 different
units, in hospitals, at Radio France,
the Pasteur Institute, the Centre Pompidou,
in a library, a restaurant, an apartment
and at the Cite de la Musique. These
sites span 50 years of construction
and very different acoustics. Each extract
is two minutes long and runs directly
into the next (though they are separately
track-marked). At the beginning and
end, calibration tracks collapse all
30 recordings into one minute. Eric
has consciously sequenced the 30 recordings
with aesthetic intent, but he also says
that 'this CD is intended to be an object
without distinctive function'. It is
certainly a recording that fulfils many
different functions, documentary, architectural
and aesthetic. It also changes radically
according to what level it is played
at, and what aural - or philosophical
- work it is asked to do.
Tobias Fischer,
http://www.tokafi.com
After
reading the liner notes, there will
certainly be a lot of people criticising
“air.ratio” for being a
mere bunch of recordings without compositional
value. Actually, Eric la Casa himself
is the first to mention it: “This
CD is intended to be an object without
distinctive function”. On the
other hand, great art has more than
once benefited from ambiguity and the
creative input of the listener –
and this album certainly does a great
job at uncovering structures of beauty
where there seemed to be nothing but
functionality.
Besides, a great concept can take you
far, but it is the moment, when an idea
turns into sound that its relevance
is determined. La Casa was lying in
a bathtub, somewhere, looking up at
the ceiling and listening to the air
vent stubornly working above him. In
the heat of the waves engulfing him
and the “dusty environment”
of the room, this subliminal sensation
suddenly took on a meaning far away
from its intended purpose – it
turned into music. Fascinated by this,
the composer recorded the event and
discovered a new area of interest –
“the air flow in modern architecture”.
Six years later, he started the project
which would lead to “air.ratio”
and wandered into a host of buildings
in Paris with the aim of documenting
their vents, occasionaly asking for
permission, occasionaly taping at his
own convenience. Naturally, there were
two apects to this endeavour, a quasi-scientific
one (in the sense of choosing a representative
mix of locations and of focussing on
certain sonic qualities) and a musical
one (by subjecting them to an emotive
listening process afterwards), but none
of the two claimed exclusiveness –
this was a personal mission and if it
satisfied his subjective curiosity,
Eric would change the parameters of
the experiment by e.g. allowing in noises
of the ventilation’s surroundings.
A total of thirty extracts have made
it to the finished CD, each of them
exactly two minutes long and fluently
flowing into the next. The result is
a long, continous drone, which, on the
surface, changes its timbre in fixed
intervals and emanates an ambiance of
wideness, spaciousness and concentrated
intensity. On a deeper examination,
the facets and rich details become visible
and one can’t help but marvel
at the ever-different characteristics
of the individual shafts: The aggressive
corridor of the Eurpean Hospital Georges
Pompidou, the darkly whistling winter
winds of the Institute Pasteur or the
galactically majestic dignity of the
“Radio France” toilet.
To answer the critics’ remarks:
If you didn’t know about the way
this was produced, it would not take
anything away from these howling, screaming,
whispering, singing, threatening and
comforting miniatures. And the omnipresence
of the objects under scrutiny means
that you can now go out and discover
those black holes of sound for yourself.
“Air.ratio” is an exciting
experiment, an excursion to the borders
of sound and an extraordinary album
– who cares, if it needs to be
labelled as “music” or not?
*BRIAN MARLEY,
The wire, July 2006*
Assisted
airflow in various Parisian buildings
is the subject of Eric La Casa's /AirRatio.
/His study of the sounds generated by
ventilation systems began in 1994, when
a dusty bathroom air vent became his
muse. /Air.Ratio'/s/ /recordings come
from various locations - the Maison
Radio France, the François Mitterrand
National Public Library, the Pompidou
Contemporary Art Centre and the bathrooms
of two domestic apartments among them.
La Casa mostly focuses his condenser
mics on extraction air vents, though
occasionally he records intake vents.
At no time do the mics come into physical
contact with them. La Casa's intention
was to record only the acoustic properties
of air as it is mechanically moved through
sectional pipes, not the sounds surrounding
the location, though there are two recordings
in which peripheral sounds marginally
intrude Moreover, he wasn't trying to
find sounds characteristic of the ventilation
system as a whole; each location was
chosen purely for its sonic richness.
As that suggests, La Casa's decisions
are aesthetically driven –he makes
no bones about the fact that he considers
these noises to be music.
What's surprising is how reminiscent
these recordings are of sculpted noise,
electronic composition and certain kinds
of electroacoustic improvisation. The
gently fluctuating, harmonically rich
roar of each of the conduits often contains
within it beatings, erratic clatterings,
a tremendous sense of presence and depth,
and a distinctive pitch register. Each
of the vent recordings is represented
by a two minutes excerpt - 30 in all.
juxtaposed seamlessly. For a prelude
and postlude, two second snippets from
all 30 are crammed into a one-minute
track.
/Air-Ratio /concludes with a minute
of silence.
Massimo
Rici, Extremes
As
his installations have repeatedly demonstrated,
Eric La Casa has a keen ear for those
phenomena of regular (or less) occurrences
whose musical character can be conveniently
exploited from an artistic point of
view. Such is the case of "the
flow of air in modern architecture",
of which this album presents thirty
examples, each one two minutes long,
that range from soft to quite hard and
were recorded by La Casa - "with
or without authorization" - in
restaurants, hospitals, libraries or
even illustrious toilets (Radio France,
the Georges Pompidou Art Center). Some
of these currents sound like a gentle
wind resonating in a tube, bringing
out the disguised harmony in an invisible
breathing organism; but as the record
goes on, there is a distinct intensity
growth of the air volume, in every sense.
This translates into some of the tracks
becoming a sort of industrial chorale,
with extraneous clicking and creaky
sounds adding spice to the pressure
on the auricular membranes: imaginary
moans take place in our mind during
a progressive alienation from the surrounding
world, made easier by the consecutiveness
of the thirty samples which bring the
duration of the disc to over 63 minutes
of non-idiomatic droning. A pulmonary
system that works wonders from the speakers
(maybe you can add your own ventilation;
the author also suggests a random playback
or even more copies of the CD listened
at the same moment to increase the variety).
Given that "La Casa" means
"The House" in Latin language,
this feels like a necessary exploration
for the inquisitive French artist.
ParisAtlantic
Magazine, 12.2006
/4'33"/
be damned – I always preferred
that piece by Max Neuhaus where he shepherded
the listeners out of the concerthall,
onto a bus, stamped the backs of their
hands with the word "LISTEN"
and drove them off to the Holland Tunnel
(I
think it was). It's a pity Eric La Casa
wasn't around at the time with his state-of-the-art
mics to record it, as he's one of the
best listeners in the business. /Air.Ratio
/finds him lurking in the nether regions
of various public buildings in Paris
– the Pasteur Institute, the Maison
Radio France, the Pompidou Centre and
the more recent Pompidou Hospital, to
name but a few – recording the
sounds of the air ducts. You'd be surprised
how different they all sound too, as
the opening and closing "Calibrations"
(one minute's worth of two-second extracts
of each of the 30 two-minute tracks
on the album, the aural equivalent of
a photographic contact sheet) make abundantly
clear. Actually the second "Calibration"
isn't the last track on the disc –
the album ends with a minute's
silence. "The absence of sound
reactivates the centrality of the listener
in his attention to sound and musical
construction, in his private place,"
explains La Casa (no comment on the
translation.. I did it actually). Anyway,
if you have to take a pee in the new
National Public Library one day and
find a bloke in there with a portable
DAT recorder, don't be surprised. Is
it art? Is it music? Who gives a toss?
Listen./– /
MS, E|I magazine
When frequenting a bathroom in the year of ‘94, the attention of sound-artist Eric La Casa was ensnared by an air vent settled just over the bathtub and he has been smitten ever since. Air.Ratio is the ensuing document which speaks of ventilation systems and their relations not only with sound, but also with the body, its processes, regulation and subsequent management. As Casa notes, these ventilation systems, these artificial respirators, as he calls them, speak to the mechanization, standardization and (over)rationalization of living conditions and events. Systems such as that of ventilation behave only according to our dictates, yet we only put into execution what the machine is programmed to do, and thus an involution of each into the other. Elements of one’s behavior, of one’s environment and their intricate web of relations are dyed in different colors when rummaging through these recordings. Much which was taken for granted, as given, as natural, appears created by and subject to a history which is saturated by shifting technologies, modes of regulation, norms and the like. Armed with a pair of condenser microphones, Casa captures the operations of an array of ventilation systems, mostly those dwelling within bathrooms in buildings of various dimension and age dotted throughout Paris. Not entirely a theoretical work, the thirty short drone-pieces on display here may be appreciated for their textural richness and surprising harmonic complexity. Owing to their varying ages and quality of the air vents, each piece has a certain personality, a certain voice. Those sullied with dust and perhaps in need of a new filter spew out more turbulent sounds, more muffled, sinusoidal hums while others are quick, clean, clinical mosaics of fluctuating electricity. It’s the ideas and questions that these pieces stir up which truly fascinate though. Suddenly the bubble boy takes on a new meaning—a symbol of the future or a reality already present? Somewhere a postmodernist is sitting on a toilet in a local pub, listening to the thrum of a ventilator, and crying softly.
Le
trimestre dernier, je vous causais de
l'amour d'Eric LA CASA pour les
ascen–seurs et leurs particularités
sonores. Maintenant, on va se
pencher sur la ven–tilation mécanique.
Le déclic remonte à 1994
; la
rencontre avec une bouche d'extraction
dans une salle de bains. «L'air
devient bruit et musique». Depuis,
tel un détective en quête
de preuves,
il file le parcours de l'air dans les
architec–tures modernes.
Ce phénomène de vibration
nous entoure, voire nous envahit. Alors
pour
reprendre John Cage parlant du bruit,
soit on l'ignore et il nous
agresse, soit on l'écou–te,
et il nous passionne. C'est cette pas–sion
que nous fait partager Eric LA CASA
dans «Air.ratio», une collection
de
30 navigations d'air à travers
cette mécanique, enregistrées
entre 2000
et 2003. Chacune a une durée
égale de deux minutes et pour
calibrer
notre écoute, il nous en donne
a entendre un extrait dans la première
minute du CD (calibrage repris à
la fin). Alors banque de sons ? Système
de calibrage acoustique ? Ambiances
? Musique ? Certainement tout à
la
fois, avec la revendication du son fixé
et de l'écoute domestique. La
dernière plage est un moment
de silen–ce nous plongeant ainsi
dans
I'écoute individuelle de notre
environnement, avec ou sans ventilation.
Et nous rappe–lant, fait essentiel,
que nous écoutions un disque
avec le
point d'écoute parti–culier
d'un compositeur. Parce que même
si la
fonction peut ne pas être revendiquée
par Eric LA CASA, c'est bien de
çà qu'il s'agit.
/«On peut se demander, puisqu'il
n'y a musique qu'ä travers notre
oreille et notre entendement, si la
musique commence quand on la fait ou
quand on l'entend /?" (Pierre Schaeffer
au Festival de la Recherche le
26 mai 1960).
PS:
j'aurais pu aussi parler de l'impres–sion
d'être dans la trompette
d'Axel Dörner, de la sensation
du chant éolien, et de la perception
lointaine de la ville.
Jérôme
NOETINGER, Magazine Revue et Corrigée
Non
c’è dubbio, siamo di fronte
ad un intuizionista. Nel senso che lo
scrittore Colson Whitehead attribuisce
alla protagonista del suo romanzo “L’intuizionista”,
Lila Watson, prima ispettrice donna
di colore dell’ispettorato Ascensori.
Lila, al contrario degli empiristi,
è perennemente in ascolto di
ascensori, dei loro guasti, dei loro
problemi... Con questa piccola e assai
consigliata extravaganza letteraria
si introducono questi piccoli gioielli
sonori: “Secousses Panoramiques”
e “Air.ratio” di Éric
La Casa pubblicati ripettivamente da
Hibari e Sirr.
Compositore ormai consacrato tra i grandi
dell’arte acusmatica, La Casa
ci offre fantastiche inquadrature sonore
di spazi di transito e luoghi interstiziali
rappresentati rispettivamente dagli
ascensori (“Secousses Panoramiques”)
e dalle riprese sonore di impianti di
ventilazione meccanica (“Air.ratio”),
registrati per la maggior parte a Parigi.
Spontanea una domanda: documenti sonori
o composizioni musicali? Nella logica
della ricezione musicale la domanda
è assolutamente legittima, e
non è indifferente alla prassi
compositiva del nostro Eric (si leggano
a questo proposito e con grande attenzione,
le note di copertina di “Air.ratio”).
Dunque: posso considerare questo lavoro
sia una testimonianza, o per dirla con
le parole dell’ecologia acustica,
un catalogo di sound marks di artefatti
umani, ma anche una composizione acusmatico-musicale
tout court.
Ho prestato così attenzione a
quest’ultimo aspetto, anzi, l’aspetto
musicale si è manifestato a partire
dalla fonte, in modo esplicito, proprio
in “Secousses Panoramique”.
Ma com’è possibile comporre
a partire da immagini sonore così
nitide, non solo con quella pulizia
di suono a cui ormai La Casa ci ha abituato,
ma anche, in questo caso, utilizzando
fonti sonore così ‘riconoscibili’,
esplicite, facilmente riconducibili
ad una abitudinarietà dell’ascolto
(passivo?) del quotidiano? Come l’obiettivo
cinematografico, anche il microfono,
può essere puntato ovunque e
la composizione inizia già a
partire dalla scelta accurata dello
strumento microfono e della sua posizione
nella spazio e la sua conseguente relazione
spaziale con il soggetto ripreso. In
questo La Casa è un maestro.
Un grande fonico al lavoro si direbbe
se non fosse che non è possibile
rimanere indifferenti alla sua sensibilità
del tutto musicale con cui maneggia
gli strumenti del mestiere. Così
emergono differenti profondità
di campo grazie anche ad un accuratissimo
montaggio fatto di inquadrature fisse
e che rendono gli stacchi del montaggio
ancora più evidenti quando la
prospettiva sonora cambia radicalmente.
La Casa, ci accompagna su e giù
per gli ascensori di Radio France, interni,
esterni, sale di attesa e punti di ‘udito’
dell’ascensore sul mondo circostante:
primo piano di sala macchina e di sala
trazione. E poi ancora su e giù
per La Défense, La Villette,
luoghi celebri, ma anche indirizzi comuni,
con tanto di numero civico in retrocopertina,
per chi volesse recarvisi (!). Insomma,
dato un soggetto così, (in epoca
di facili revisionismi, perdonatemi
l’utilizzo demodé del termine),
postmoderno, i materiali, gli eventi
sonori diventano veramente molti e le
loro possibili combinazioni, infinite.
La Casa accosta come solo lui sa fare
l’indicibile e l’inascoltato,
anzi ciò che è continuamente
ascoltato, ma a cui mai si è
prestato attenzione musicale. La Casa
ci offre la prospettiva musicale di
un soggetto altrimenti in-ascoltabile
o, che è peggio, di un soggetto
che è spesso costretto ad ascoltare
muzak peggiore di quella che da solo
è in grado di produrre. Il fantomatico
fronte di liberazione degli ascensori
ha finalmente annichilito muzak e volgari
dialoghi umanoidi.
Queste considerazioni valgono senz’altro
anche per “Air.ratio” dove
la prospettiva compositiva si radicalizza,
così come il metodo sistematico
con cui La Casa cataloga le proprie
fonti. È sicuramente il contenuto
acustico-spettrale degli impianti di
ventilazione a rendere l’ascolto
musicale di difficile auscultazione.
Ci troviamo di fronte a continue variazioni
monocrome anche in questo caso rigorosamente
ordinate e classificate. L’immagine
sonora è sempre molto nitida,
così come il contenuto spettrale
delle fonti, altamente differenziato,
grazie anche alla complessità
fisica del mezzo di ‘propagazione’
sonora, risultato di studi di ingegneria
meccanico-acustica. Interessante notare
che in codesti prodotti meccanici le
caratteristiche fisiche (densità,
materiale) sono studiate in maniera
tale da attutire il più possibile
la componente rumorosa del mezzo di
propagazione. Ed è forse proprio
questa considerazione a rendere ‘bello’
l’ascolto di questo cd. La Casa,
come in “Secousses Panoramiques”,
ha documentato con magistrale eleganza
l’imprinting sonoro di mezzi meccanici
di ventilazione parigina. Proprio in
quanto tale, anche agli ingegneri meccanici
in ascolto di questo cd rimane un gran
lavoro da fare se il fine di ogni impianto
di ventilazione è anche quello
di ridurne la componente rumorosa. Ma
sorge spontanea una domanda: come è
possibile togliere suono ad un movimento
dell’aria, quando questo, di origine
appunto meccanica, è genesi di
ogni fenomeno sonoro? In ogni caso,
massimi sistemi a parte, l’acquisto
è altamente consigliato.
Fabio Selvafiorita
http://www.sands-zine.com
Un
approccio che non è completamente
scientifico ma neanche come prima istanza
solo musicale. Eric La Casa è
interessato dalla natura e qualità
dei suoni in contesti urbani e nel corso
della sua ricerca ha sviluppato una
particolare sensibilità verso
i procedimenti fisici di trasmissione
che sono connessi a tali accadimenti.
Ogni suono è vibrazione di onde
che si propagano attraverso l'aria (nel
vuoto il suono non esiste), quale fonte
migliore allora di quella che meccanicamente
stimola lei stessa la produzione d'aria
nelle moderne architetture? Parliamo
naturalmente di ventole, bocche d'aerazione
forzata, impianti di condizionamento,
sono questi inglobati nelle strutture
delle nostre case, negli ambienti di
lavoro, negli spazi pubblici, i mezzi
meccanici ad essere oggetto dell'investigazione
acusmatica del francese. L'aria è
da sempre sinonimo di vita, per i musicisti
sperimentali lo è anche di suono.
Coerente nell'impostazione teorica ed
anche godibile negli esiti questo è
un album decisamente da non perdere.
Aurelio Cianciotta, neural.it
Is
this research, documentary or sound
art? For 'air.ratio', phonographer Eric
La Casa focuses on ventilation systems.
Ominous and ubiquitous in our lives,
especially in public buildings, mechanical
air distribution systems generate noise
we have all grown accustomed to. La
Casa sticks a microphone up close to
various parts of Parisian public buildings’
ventilation systems (ducts, registers,
plenums and air vents) to capture the
details of their songs and highlight
a range of tones, textures and colors
that largely go unnoticed. The field
recordist could have turned these raw
materials into an immersive, carefully
mixed sound art piece (his “Les
Pierres du Seuil” series of compositions
show a sharp musique concrete talent),
but instead he opted for a “raw
data” approach. The album consists
of 30 two-minute tracks, each one presenting
a different recording. There is no crossfading
or any other attempt to merge the recordings
- every 120 seconds, the sound abruptly
changes and that’s that. This
sequence of 30 tracks is bookended by
two Calibration pieces that are similarly
crude collages of two-second snippets
from each recording (30 x 2 = 60 seconds
flat). And the album ends with a minute
of silence to see if, after studying
air ducts under the microscope for an
hour, listeners can tune back their
ears to their own ventilation system.
Air.ratio provides an interesting databank
for ambient and experimental soundsmiths,
and it does make the casual listeners
more aware of their surroundings, but
it lacks an interpretative dimension
to make it worthy of repeated listening.
In other words, the catalog format is
disappointing, something that cannot
be fixed by simply putting the CD player
on random mode.
François Couture,
http://www.allmusic.com
The
idea was simple. Eric La Casa admits
himself, "It all started in 1994,
in a bathroom. An air vent above the
bathtub attracted my attention. There,
in the dusty environment, air became
noise, music. Microphones were brought
into contact with this acoustic territory
to transmit the sonority of the aeraulic
device directly. Since that day, I have
been attentive to the flow of air in
the modern architecture." The CD
illustrates some of La Casa's work recorded
in various public buildings in Paris,
such as the Maison Radio France, the
Pompidou Centre, the Georges Pompidou
European Hospital and the Francois Mitterand
French National Public Library. La Casa's
interest in air vents centered on the
public washrooms. These were the most
accessible places as oftentimes; he
didn't even have to ask permission to
record there. All that was used to record
the sounds was a boom and a pair of
condenser microphones. The soothing
vent in the Radio France corridor is
nothing like the rattling fan inside
of the European Hospital Georges Pompidou.
If we move inside the bathroom of the
Radio France building, the fan sounds
hollow, rather inhumane, while the intake
air-vent in the National Public Library
Francois Mitterand is all industrial
noise and gore. While some fan and vent
sounds are more pleasing and actually
border on trance territory, others are
obtuse and challenge the listener to
really listen. Whether it's listening
to the clues as to the age of the propelling
fan, or its whereabouts, La Casa's pursuit
is pure fun. It's all fair game when
you're unmasking what the taxpayers'
money is actually spent on.
Tom Sekowski, http://www.gaz-eta.vivo.pl/
ERIC LA CASA Air.Ratio (Sirr) • When frequenting a bathroom in the year of ‘94, the attention of sound-artist Eric La Casa was ensnared by an air vent settled just over the bathtub and he has been smitten ever since. Air.Ratio is the ensuing document which speaks of ventilation systems and their relations not only with sound, but also with the body, its processes, regulation and subsequent management. As Casa notes, these ventilation systems, these artificial respirators, as he calls them, speak to the mechanization, standardization and (over)rationalization of living conditions and events. Systems such as that of ventilation behave only according to our dictates, yet we only put into execution what the machine is programmed to do, and thus an involution of each into the other. Elements of one’s behavior, of one’s environment and their intricate web of relations are dyed in different colors when rummaging through these recordings. Much which was taken for granted, as given, as natural, appears created by and subject to a history which is saturated by shifting technologies, modes of regulation, norms and the like. Armed with a pair of condenser microphones, Casa captures the operations of an array of ventilation systems, mostly those dwelling within bathrooms in buildings of various dimension and age dotted throughout Paris. Not entirely a theoretical work, the thirty short drone-pieces on display here may be appreciated for their textural richness and surprising harmonic complexity. Owing to their varying ages and quality of the air vents, each piece has a certain personality, a certain voice. Those sullied with dust and perhaps in need of a new filter spew out more turbulent sounds, more muffled, sinusoidal hums while others are quick, clean, clinical mosaics of fluctuating electricity. It’s the ideas and questions that these pieces stir up which truly fascinate though. Suddenly the bubble boy takes on a new meaning—a symbol of the future or a reality already present? Somewhere a postmodernist is sitting on a toilet in a local pub, listening to the thrum of a ventilator, and crying softly.
MS, E|I Magazine
Is´cie
magiczna transmisja dz´wiełku
ze s´wiata wentylatorów.
Francuski,
"poeta field recordingu",
wykorzystujałc dwuminutowe wyjałtki
z
zarejestrowanych w róz˛nych paryskich
budynkach uz˛ytecznos´ci publicznej
(sał ws´ród nich hotel,
szpital, biblioteka, muzeum) nagran´
terenowych
stworzy? quasi-opereł, w której
arie wys´piewujał mniej lub bardziej
skomplikowane, m?odsze i starsze, systemy
wentylacyjne. Poczałwszy od
sk?adajałcej sieł z dwusekundowych wycinków
uwertury az˛ do wien´czałcej
ca?os´c´ wymownał ciszał
minutowej kody La Casa raczy s?uchaczy
w?as´ciwie dobranał dawkał zapiaszczonych
szumów, surowych szmerów,
kostropatych s´wistów,
szorstkich trzasków, prowadzałcych
niezrozumia?ał, lecz wydajałcałsieł
niepozbawionał znaczen´, narracjeł.
Byc´ moz˛e artys´cie uda?o
sieł zarejestrowac´ g?osy wentylatorów
zdradzajałce swe, skryte na ogó?
przed ludz´mi, najg?ełbiej tajone
tajemnice. Kto wie, o czym marzał wentylatory
? Zapewne nikt nie pozna ich marzen´,
ale La Casa przynajmniej umia? je nak?onic´,
by o nich s´piewa?y. W jego
cierpliwych i troskliwych d?oniach dz´wiełk,
jaki wydaje powietrze
przep?ywajałce przez budynki przeistacza
sieł w pies´n´. Szum staje
sieł muzykał.
Tadeusz Kosiek http://www.gaz-eta.vivo.pl/
"Eric
La Casa crashes hunting for the grotesque
WEB of a chemical anthropoid
brain universe of the terror fear cytoplasm
that jointed to the insanity
medium of the hyperreal HIV scanners
DNA channel of the corpse city.
Air.ratio, reptilian=HUB to the genomics
strategy circuit that was processed
the body encoder of the ultra machinary
tragedy-ROM creature system that was
debugged the technojunkies' data mutant
of Eric La Casa's abolition
world-codemaniacs feeling replicant.
Eric La Casa's abnormal living body
of
the drug fetus of the trash sense-DNA
bomb mass of flesh-module that was
controlled to the acidHUMANIX infectious
disease archive of the biocapturism
nerve cells nightmare-script of a clone
boy murder game. Eric La Casa
plug-in the terror fear cytoplasm murder-protocol
of the biocapturism nerve
cells reptilian HUB of a clone boy gene-dub
of the drug fetus of the trash
sense. Air.ratio, the paradise apparatus
of the human body pill cruel
emulator corpse feti streaming of the
soul/gram made of retro-ADAM to the
abolition world-codemaniacs that was
processed the data mutant of Eric La
Casa's ultra machinary tragedy-ROM creature
system FUCKNAMLOAD. Eric La
Casa's modem heart of the hybrid corpse
mechanism that tera of dogs turned
on technojunkies' ill-treatment to the
mass of flesh-module of the hyperreal
HIV scanner form that was debugged the
DNA channel. Eric La Casa's guerrilla
to the paradise apparatus of the human
body pill cruel emulator that
compressed the brain universe of the
hybrid corpse mechanism gene-dub of
a
chemical anthropoid acidHUMANIX infectious
disease of the soul/gram made of
retro-ADAM. Air.ratio, the feeling replicant
trash sense of drug fetus
living body junk of Eric La Casa's digital
vamp cold-blooded disease animals
to the ultra machinary tragedy-ROM creature
system that was debugged the
murder game. Hunting for the grotesque
WEB abolition world-codemaniacs of
the terror fear cytoplasm that was send
back out to the DNA channels of the
biocapturism nerve cells corpse feti
streaming of a clone boy technojunkies'
era respiration-byte to hyperreal HIV
scanner form Eric La Casa joints."
-
Kenji Siratori,
author of Blood Electric
The late composer John Cage may be best
remembered for a piece of music that
was more conceptual than musical. The
work, titled "Four minutes 33 seconds,"
was four minutes and 33 seconds of silence.
Cage wanted to show, in his words, that
"wherever we are what we hear mostly
is noise." Frenchman Eric La Casa
picks up the baton where Cage left off.
Except there's something, ever so quietly
happening, in the sounds La Casa has
recorded. The World's Marco Werman explains.
“I'm a sound artist. I'm not a
musician in the traditional sense of
music.”
Not a musician in the traditional sense
of music. And what does that mean?
Well, that's the sound of an air vent.
As Eric La Casa explains in the liner
notes to his album "air.ratio,"
it's an insulated rectangular air vent.
More precisely ... Its right conduit,
in a parking lot at the Georges Pompidou
hospital in the 15th arrondissment in
Paris.
On "air.ratio" you will also
find the sounds of an air vent in the
National Public Library Francois Mitterand,
as well as an air vent in the bathroom
at a restaurant called Le Chiberta.
Not surprisingly, these are monotonous
sounds with a few mysterious micro-tonal
quavers here and there.
But La Casa says they vary in nuanced
ways depending on the particular air
vent.
“Depends of the diameters of the
pipe, the ventilator, mainly it's the
ventilator that differentiates the network.
And the turbulence, the turbulence of
air in the pipe.”
Think of the differences between a trombone,
a tuba and a French horn.
Same thing with a ventilation system:
different tube diameters, different
lengths, different pressure, and ultimately
different sounds.
La Casa says he began considering the
musical quality of air vents a few years
ago when he was visiting a friend's
apartment.
La Casa: “It was a bathroom in
a normal apartment in Paris from the
middle of the seventies, I think this
building. so...”
Marco: "And what did you hear at
that moment where you said... "
La Casa: At that moment there...the
problem is that there are many dust
in the air vent so it produced a very
specific musical melody like (whistles).
Something like that.
You may be asking what Eric La Casa
is trying to do with these sounds. I
did.
Marco: "So, what are you trying
to say with this?"
La Casa: (pauses) "Mmm. So many
things. Maybe first I try to find the
sort of centers where I can say, "This
is not music. Maybe it's music. This
is not only sound. But this is only
make with sound."
And so we're back to the John Cage philosophy
that wherever we go, there's noise,
even when there's apparent silence.
Now, there's an interesting political
twist to this story.
After Eric La Casa released this CD,
a debate began to course through artistic
circles, and it spread to a wider audience.
People started to seriously discuss
the acoustics of ventilation noise in
Paris buildings.
In the late 60s, the French government
began requiring ventilation systems
in new buildings.
But now, people in France have discovered
that the European Union will dictate
aero and sonic comfort in new building
construction in France.
And the French are not happy about it.
“Now we have a big problem because
the European community is trying to
define what will be our comfort inside
these new building.”
As for Eric La Casa, if you think he's
going to be type cast as an air-vent
artist, you don't know the rest of his
work.
“I did another CD. It's dedicated
to the elevator.”
For The World,
I'm Marco Werman.
'...
l'aria è da sempre sinonimo di
vita, per i musicisti sperimentali lo
è anche di suono...'
Come non gradire questo genere di metafora,
partita recentemente dalla mente di
Aurelio Cianciotta sulle pagine di Neural,
quando si è trovato a discutere
e valutare proprio la fresca prova (ariosa)
di Eric La Casa sprigionata da "Air.Ratio".
E' la prima volta che stabilisco di
far diventare la citazione di un ‘collega’
preludio di una recensione, ma era davvero
difficile resistere alla tentazione
di far conoscere ai lettori di Kathodik,
con tali parole, la linfa vitale (acusmatica)
di cui è ripiena questa carrellata
di registrazioni atmosferiche-ambientali
davvero anomala.
E allora, direte voi, con quali particolari
strumenti abbiamo l'onore di entrare
questa volta in contatto attraverso
l’ascolto di “Air.Ratio”?.
Il musicista-sperimentatore francese
è stato sempre attratto dai fenomeni
sonori rilasciati dall’atmosfera
circostante: in tutti questi anni di
produzioni Eric La Casa ha perseguito
una ricerca volta allo studio della
natura, alla qualità dei suoni
da lei sprizzati, ponendo una distinzione
tra contesti urbani e non.
Ogni suono è una vibrazione di
onde, percettibili o meno, che mediante
enigmatici procedimenti elettro-acustici
è possibile ‘musicare’.
Oltre alla scuola concreta francese,
di cui La Casa è degno erede,
rimetto mano (e mente) alle parole (spero
mai ‘sopite’) di John Cage
che non smise mai di elevare a magnificenza
del suono anche i rumori più
assordanti e, apparentemente, lontani
da ogni ubicazione musicale.
Tornando a questo nuovo cd della Sirr
scorgiamo il nostro artista intento
nella singolare registrazione di macchinari
che stimolano e producono (artificiosamente)
l’aria; per capirci meglio, Eric
ha raccolto nella città di Parigi,
tra il 2000 e il ’03, un cospicuo
archivio di suoni provenienti da condizionatori,
ventole, bocche d'aerazione forzata,
impianti di condizionamento. Si è
limitato volutamente a campionare solo
macchinari che risiedessero nei moderni
edifici della propria città:
l’ospedale europeo Georges Pompidou,
la biblioteca nazionale Francois Mitterand,
il famoso centro di arte contemporanea
Pompidou...
Sotto un profilo unicamente uditivo,
è veramente complesso l’ascolto
del disco, ci troviamo dinanzi ad una
raccolta di suoni che potremmo accostare,
per volume e tonalità, a drones
massici e ostici.
Un lavoro non solamente di semplici
field recordings, ma soprattutto un
manufatto sonoro altamente concettuale
che scava in profondità alla
ricerca dell’anima più
nascosta del suono, dell’aria
e del magnifico ambiente che ci circonda
ogni giorno, celando tra esso paradisi
sonori ancora sconosciuti.
Sergio elleto,
http://www.kathodik.it
