Curating Sonic Laboratories

Bruno Latour’s essay Give Me a Laboratory and I will Raise the World (1983), describes the laboratory as the place in science and technology where innovation happens. From the depth of the lab, the society is so directly modified. This essay examines the power of the laboratory to transform society, or of rebuilding the system in which it is embedded. Following such reasoning, this essay will make a case for how transformations in culture, capital and society that occurred during the 1990s are part of the history from which to explain the emergence of laboratory spaces such as hackerspaces, media labs and the lessfavoured sonic laboratories. Nevertheless, there are qualitative as well as quantitative differences between such places. Since their appearance, sonic laboratories have been aligned, for example, with critical and alternative practices, thus indicating a separation from the neoliberal economies of private sector galleries and established cultural institutions in the public sector (Jaron Rowan, 2015). Reacting against these, the sonic laboratory is often characterised by using open source and digital media and focuses on radically transforming production denouncing how capitalistic market speculates with the value of art objects. The sonic lab offers a confrontation with the methods of capitalistic technologies, becoming its production more affordable and also, provides models of collaborative practices which encourage experimentation and creativity in the curation of sound arts. The sonic lab offers practices of instrument making that make production more personal but located in a community. Such labs can address new institutional opportunities in humanities to engage with practice-based knowledge creation and extend their mission to include tools, techniques and a new curatorial scope.

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Laura Plana Gracia

Conference

Publication date: August 2019

Publication date (Print): August 2019

Pages: 22-30

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[0001]UAL – LCC - CRiSAP

London

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/RESOUND19.4

SO-VID: a7dd5f37-0539-4bed-b4f6-f001130763d8

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: RE:SOUND 2019 – 8th International Conference on Media Art, Science, and Technology

Conference acronym: RE:SOUND 2019

Conference number: 8

Conference location: Aalborg, Denmark

Conference date: August 20-23, 2019

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Media Art, Science, and Technology

History

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1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/RESOUND19.4

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] S. Ahmed Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others Durham, NC Duke University Press 2006

[2] A. Artaud El Teatro de la Crueldad. Ciencia, Poesía Y Metafísica Editorial La Pajarita De Papel 2019

[3] Y. Benkler The Wealth of Networks New Haven Yale University Press 2006 http://benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks.pdf 15 7 2019

[4] P. Bratach Why Do Open Source Projects Fork? 2017 https://thenewstack.io/open-source-projects-fork/ 14 06 2018

[5] N. Collins Handmade Electronic Music. The Art of Hardware Hacking London & New York Routledge 2006

[6] F. Dyson Sounding New Media: Immersion and Embodiment in the Arts and Culture CA University of California Press 2009

[7] D. Fritz Grey Area, Zagreb http://sivazona.hr/start 20 02 2018

[8] M. García 2015 Medialab-Prado: retos del presente. LabMeeting 2015. Medialab Prado Madrid 2015 https://www.medialab-prado.es/noticias/labmeeting2015-madrid-documentacion-audiovisual 23 12 2016

[9] F. Guattari The three ecologies London Bloomsbury Academic 2014

[10] J. Kemp The Crystal World: Executing a New Media Materialism PhD Dissertation University of Westminster 2013

[11] K. Knorr-Cetina The manufacture of knowledge: an essay on the constructivist and contextual nature of science Oxford New York Pergamon Press 1981

[12] J. Krysa Exhibition as Lab. Erkki Kurenniemi in 2048, Documenta 13. Media Art Histories 2016 http://pl02.donau-uni.ac.at/jspui/handle/10002/746 27 06 2018

[13] V. Kuni Abstract for the lecture within the conference Screening Science 2005 Johannes Lenhard, Warhols Factory - A Laboratory http://www.grin.com/en/e-book/142943/warhols-factory-a-laboratory 28 08 2017

[14] B. Latour Give Me a Laboratory and I will Raise the World K. Knorr-CetinaM. Mulkay Science Observed: Perspectives on the Social Study of Science London and Beverly Hills Sage 1983

[15] B. Latour Science in Action. How to follow scientist and engineers through society Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University Press 1987

[16] B. LatourS. Woolgar Laboratory Life, The Construction Of Scientific Facts New Jersey, Princeton Princeton University Press 1986

[17] M. Lazzarato From Capital-Labour to Capital-Life Valerie Fournier Ephemera Journal 4 3 http://www.ephemerajournal.org/sites/default/files/43lazzarato.pdf 07 10 2019 2004

[18] M. McLuhan Understanding Media. The extensions of man London and New York Gingko Press Inc 2003

[19] M. Moskow The Age of Advertising: Reeves Sound Laboratories (1943-1944). History, at Random The Past In The Present 2017 http://thepastpresented.com/index.php/tag/reeves-soundlaboratories/ 22 04 2018

[20] J. ParikaL. Emmerson What is a Media Lab? Situated Practices in Media Studies 2016 https://whatisamedialab.com/ 22 04 2018

[21] A. Patel DIY Instruments and White Label Releases eContact! 18.3 - Sonic DIY: Repurposing the Creative Self. Montréal: Communauté électro-acoustique canadienne / Canadian Electroacoustic Community 2016 http://econtact.ca/18_3/patel_whitelabel.html 2016

[22] A. Pickering Science as Practice and Culture Chicago University of Chicago Press 1992 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/37688422_Science_as_Practice_and_Culture 2016

[23] E. Romero-FríasN. Robinson-García Social Labs in Universities: Innovation and Impact Comunicarn 51 v XXV Media Education Research Journal 2017 http://eprints.rclis.org/31099/1/c5103en.pdf 27 09 2017

[24] J. Rowan Cultura Libre de Estado Madrid Traficantes de Suenos 2016

[25] J. Ruiz MartínJ. Alcalá Mellado Los cuatro ejes de la cultura participativa actual. De las plataformas virtuales al medialab Revista ICONO14 Revista Científica De Comunicación Y Tecnologías Emergentes 14 1 95 122 2016 https://doi.org/10.7195/ri14.v14i1.904 10 07 2019

[26] J. Sterne The Magic in instruments. Music technologies and commodity fetishism G. Celant Art or Sound 2014

[27] A. Tanaka Situating within Society: Blueprints and Strategies for Media Labs Angela Plohman A Blueprint for a Lab of the Future Eindhoven Baltan Laboratories 2011

[28] D. Vinck Back to the laboratory as a knowledge production Space Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances. 2007/2 1 2 2007 https://www.cairn.info/revueanthropologie-des-connaissances-2007-2-page160.htm 28 08 2017

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