Conference on Noise music, University of Salford, July 2010
 

Obviously this will be of no use to most of you, even if you are interested, but anyway:

"Bigger than Words, Wider than Pictures": Noise, Affect, Politics

University of Salford and Islington Mill, July 1-3 2010

Organising Committee:

Dr Michael Goddard, Dr Benjamin Halligan and Professor David Sanjek


What exactly is noise and what conditions those relative thresholds in which sound crosses over into noise? Or are they more organised and polite sonic phenomena merely varieties of noise that have been tamed and civilised, and yet still contain kernels of the chaotic, anomalous disturbance of primordial noise? As a radical free agent, how is noise channelled, neutralised or enhanced in emergent cityscapes? As a consumable, how is noise - or lack of noise - commodified?

Such questions are particularly applicable to contemporary forms of music which, based as they are on a variety of noise-making technical machines, necessarily exist in the interface between chaotic, unpredictable noise and the organised and blended sounds of music and speech. Does modern noise seek to lead us to new, post-secular inscapes (as with psychedelia and shoegazer), or defy the lulling noisescapes of processed background muzak with punitive blasts of disorientating, disorderly noise? And why the cult of noise - in term of both volume and dissonance - in which low cultural practices (metal, moshing) meet those of the avant-garde (atonalism, transcendentalism)?

This conference seeks to address the contemporary phenomenon of noise in all its dimensions: cultural, political, territorial, philosophical, physiological, subversive and military, and as anomalous to sound, speech, musicality and information. Possible topics include but are not limited to:

* Psychedelic and Neo-Psychedelic Musics

* Punk and Post-Punk Musics

* Experimental Musics from Avant-Classical to Digital Noise / Raw Data

* Industrial Musics and Cultures

* Krautrock and German Noise

* Shoegazer, Nu-Gaze and Post-Rock

* Noise as Cultural Anomaly

* Noise, Chaos and Order

* Noise and digital compression

* Noise Scenes from No Wave to Japan-Noise

* Noise and electronic music pioneers (Delia Derbyshire, Varèse, Stockhausen)

* Noise and Territory

* Sonic Warfare

* Noise and Urban Environments / "Noise pollution"

* Noise and Subjectivation

* Sonic Ecologies

* "White Noise"

* Noise and Political Subversion

* Noise and hearing impairment / deafness

* Psychic / silent noise

* Noise and mixing, particularly in nightclub environments

* Noise in Cinema, Video and Sound Art

* Noise, Appropriation and Recombination

* Noise and Affect

The conference will be organised by the Centre for Communication, Cultural and Media Studies at the University of Salford in cooperation with Islington Mill, Salford and will take place from the 1-3rd of July and will include both an academic conference and noise gigs featuring amongst other groups, The Telescopes and Factory Star and other special guests tbc. Confirmed keynote speakers include rock historian Clinton Heylin, author of From the Velvets to the Voidoids and numerous other works on (post)punk and popular music, Stephen Lawrie of The Telescopes, and Paul Hegarty, author of the recent Noise/Music.

In addition to conventional papers, noise, sound and video art proposals are also welcome.
To participate in the conference please send a 400 word abstract and biographical note to Michael Goddard, m.n.goddard@salford.ac.uk and Benjamin Halligan, b.halligan@salford.ac.uk by 28 February 2010.

Had heard about this. I hope to be there. Have no idea what an "abstract and biographic note" mean though. Hmmmm.

you'll only need to bother with those if you're actually going to be speaking at the conference.

sounds cool. if only this was a few years from now then maybe i could go speak there...

Hmm. Sounds like precisely the sort of tosshousery I should be getting involved with. Although the presence of Factory Star and the phrase 'post-secular' is a bit worrying.

fucking academics and their cockstroking wankathons

Haha, I know. Although you should've read the blurb in its entirety. I edited down for mercy's sake:

Here's the unabridged one:

Noise Annoys. Is it not a banal fact of modern, urban existence that one person's preferred sonic environment is another's irritating, unwelcome noise - whether in the high-rise apartment, on public transport or the street, or almost anywhere else? The contingent soundscape of jack-hammers and pneumatic drills, mobile phone chatter, car sirens and alarms, sound leakage from nightclubs and bars and - moving into the suburbs - lawn-mowers and amateur renovation projects, neighbouring kids and dogs, represents a near-constant aural assault. As a pollutant, noise can legally attain noxious levels; it is both potentially biologically harmful and psychologically detrimental.

But what exactly is noise and what conditions these relative thresholds in which sound crosses over into noise? Or are these more organised and polite sonic phenomena merely varieties of noise that have been tamed and civilised, and yet still contain kernels of the chaotic, anomalous disturbance of primordial noise? As a radical free agent, how is noise channelled, neutralised or enhanced in emergent cityscapes? As a consumable, how is noise - or lack of noise - commodified?

Such questions are particularly applicable to contemporary forms of music which, based as they are on a variety of noise-making technical machines, necessarily exist in the interface between chaotic, unpredictable noise and the organised and blended sounds of music and speech. Does modern noise seek to lead us to new, post-secular inscapes (as with psychedelia and shoegazer), or defy the lulling noisescapes of processed background muzak with punitive blasts of disorientating, disorderly noise? And why the cult of noise - in term of both volume and dissonance - in which low cultural practices (metal, moshing) meet those of the avant-garde (atonalism, transcendentalism)?

I went to a Jimi Hendrix talk the other day because I
didn't have anything to do that evening. I don't care much for Hendrix and the people giving oral to his myth looked more bored than the audience, save for the few hardcore fans who were there. The best thing was the free wine.

Does anyone actually read that and find it appealing? It makes me want to throttle someone.

Unfortunately - and I'm Herr Rail will agree with this - the sort of people who find that appealing are precisely the sort of people who are least suited to talking on the subject. Hopefully it'll only be a matter of time before I join the legion of cunts who jump up to talk about precisely this sort of shite, adding to the landfill of unnecessary, fatuous toss.

Part of the problem is that there are any number of people - including a few people here -who could provide an interesting and enlightening talk on the subject of noise, but would mostly be too antagonised by the academalese to follow through..

Yes, I know I'm a prick, thankyou.

Maybe that's because those people are too busy enjoying making noise and listening to it, therefore they keep all their interesting, but ultimataly inconsequential observations to themselves and their chums. After all, most of the people who really have time for that stuff are either academics or those who want to be one.

Why? WHY? WHY?

Money, and I like the academic environment. Plus, I'm well-suited to it. And also, there's the half-a-year's holiday you (pretend to) get.

Marras: I think you've missed a trick there (not to mention the breadth of the conference), but it's hardly important. Horses for courses and all that.

I hope you recover from this disorder

Marras: I think you've missed a trick there (not to mention the breadth of the conference), but it's hardly important. Horses for courses and all that.[/quote]
Typical reply a wannabe academic would give. There is no trick to be missed, you just convinced yourself there is one. Pepe...Pepe...Pepe Le Punk.

Bowels: Your experience was of academic artists, who sit next to genocidal dictators in the horrendous people stakes.

Marras: I'm not going to enter into a big gay discussion on this, I was just point out that the conference deals with wider issues than just the sort of thing ugly, retarded cunts make with (yawn) distortion pedals. I've no doubt it'll be full of toss, but that's not the point.