O/live The relationship between vibration and listening perception happens to be more and more in the focus of research and discussion also in the aesthetic practices developed outside the academic environment. It is a reflection fueled by the questioning of different concepts, such as the relationship between processes both natural and artificial, the sonic anthropocentrism, the musicological reading of events tied to sonic landscapes.
And these are the themes developed by German sound artists Stefan Militzer and Roland Etzin with their work, which enriches Galaverna’s catalogue with a proper study on vibration, in which sonic particles are captured in their fluctuations around auditive perception limit and they float releasing energy and shaping patterns and rhythmic structures in constant motion.
In this continuum, where natural and artificial become inseparable, pulsations and rhythms become ciphers of a code to (re)read a reality, in which sonic phenomenons are partially precluded from ear perception. From this point forward everything is movement, at a molecular or quantum level. Everything vibrates, releasing information, which, as stated by Stefan Militzer and Roland Etzin in the presentation notes, “express vitality and, ultimately, unveil the seed of life in every existing thing”.
Notes from the artist The world is constantly vibrating. There is a swinging in the air. Rivers flow and so does blood. Even the ground is moving from time to time under massive strokes of energy. The travel of energy happens in waves and by vibration. Thus, the beating of a heart appears to have a similar shape like the way energy travels through oceans and continents. The omnipresence of waves equals the power musical oscillation possesses for expressing energy. This energy does not only travel around the world but it bears what the world consists of. The ubiquity of energy, of vibration and oscillation also lies behind John Cages observation that true silence can only be found in death.
"O/live" circles and meditates around the interpenetration of the world by vibration. Waves of sounds and noise gather to form patterns and rhythmic structures. The artificial as well as natural origin of the sounds renders apparent that through the perspective of waves and oscillation no distinction between the organic and the inorganic world can be made. There are pulses and rhythms everywhere in the world. Natural patterns and artificial sequences intermingle inseparably. Their differentiation from a perspective of musicality would be futile. But communication happens nevertheless. In "O/live" oscillation creates patterns of repetition from which rhythm is derived and further transformed into vibes that spread information by expressing vitality and, thus, unraveling the seed of life in everything that exists.
O/live by Stefan Militzer & Roland Etzin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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