MEDIA TAGS

available formats in this documentation

this GLOSSARY provides a list and full descriptions of all TAGS used. the TAGS are guideways through the website and a means for tracking different interrelations and lineages of the works. there are two different categories: MEDIA TAGS - to indicate which media are availble for each work and CONTENT TAGS.

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a sound file is available
a signal flow chart or drawing is available
a photo is available
a graphical representation of a sonic or musical PROCESS is available
a video file is available
CONTENT TAGS

what the work was/is

pieces for loudspeakers. no live performers. no score. no theater. nothing to look at. present is only the sound projectionist, who ideally is as invisible as possible. they do not replace the performer. they are a translator, an interpreter, translating the pre-existing audio material into an experience in a unique architectural space. they are an artist as operator, or technician, somebody pierre schaeffer would have been proud of. related to concrète approaches for composing and organizing sound.
collaborations with juan betancurth: with these truly collaborative works, consisting of objects and situation-specific sound, the artists juan betancurth and daniel neumann explore the overlap & the consequences between their significantly different individual practices. neumann’s intermedia practice is mostly focused on sound, sound material and its modulation through space with temporal operations. betancurth's mixed media works act as loaded metaphors, provoking the viewers' intimate desires to come to the surface as they decode each object. they've been collaborating on various installations and performances since 2013.
general term for the activity of working jointly with others towards a shared goal. the goal can be blurry, yet each individual that's part of the collaboration contributes something towards the result. there are different levels of dividing the work, different forms of work, different levels of investment by participants, different hierarchies, organizational structures, credit distortions, favoritism and power dynamics. MODULAR COLLABORATION is one of the many forms of collaborations. team effort can rely on greater resources and in more decentralized forms of collaboration the idea of the Genius Author is weakened - probably a reason why in the art world collaborative efforts are less sellable desireable.
an approach to sound, based on using and altering specific, recorded, concrete audio material. manipulation is limited. in the tradition of the musique conrète the concrete sonic material is the starting point of the compositional activities. the work unfolds from there - not from a master-method or grande idea or score determining the structure of the piece. unfolding, not imposing. most often resulting in ACOUSMATIC compositions. through manipulation of the concrete material different degrees of source regonition are achieved. [durchdringung des materials wie das formen und kneten des tons.]
continual concrète practice - a compositional approach, where a given sound material (recorded or generated) is applied, diffused, processed and re-recorded over multiple iterations, always in response to the surroundings, FOR-SITE. these iterations - or concretions -  could be in the format of performances, installations or hybrids of both. the sound material is continually shifting, morphing and developing. each concretion leaves its temporal and spatial traces and imprints in the growing body of sound material, which is layered, staggered, cut and merged. over time, not for one finished piece - it is being unfolded, processed, recorded again, modified and re-applied again to ever new listening situations. the use of audio tools and procedures and the ways of using sounds are derived from the historical musique concrète, so composing starts with concrete sounds, not with an abstract idea and sound diffusion is the main performance method - CONCRÈTE. in contrast to the fixed media compositions of musique concrète though, continual concrète pieces do not result in a finished, hermetic work. each iteration is responsive to its surroundings, the different speaker types, the architecture, situation and available systems. performances are in a way temporary concretions where the different spatio-temporal fragments and layers are stringed and woven together in the present moment. the listening space is shared with the audience. listening as a process is being foregrounded, to encourage a simultaneous attentiveness to the sound field one is sitting in and to an inner field that is resonating and/or expanding. so rather than following pierre schaefer’s call for a “reduced listening” neumann is inviting a spatially expanded listening. and the reduction (of narrative and semantic content) becomes the responsibility of the composer.
SITUATIONs in which neumann's leading role was curator or organizer. he sees these endeavors part of his artistic practice, or as part of his artistic research. perforated fields.
pieces involving any kind of electronic (digital or analog) processing of acoustic instruments.
the term is used here in reference to the musical practice that originated in western art music (mostly academic) during the modern era, rather than the broader use of electroacoustic as a branch of acoustic engineering. yet these two definitions are closely related to the other by involving the use of transducers that convert one form of energy (acoustic) into another (electro-magnetic). in western art music the term has become quite blurry over the last decades including everything that is incorporating electric sound production into compositional practice.
i find a limitation based on live- or pre-excecuted signal processing of acoustic sound sources helpful for keeping the term meaningful.
a PERFORMANCE or RECORDING is structured as an experiment. the outcome is not predetermined. the focus is on the PROCESS, not on the result. there is no failure: the word experimental is apt, providing it is understood not as descriptive of an act to be later judged in terms of success or failure, but simply as of an act the outcome of which is unknown. (cage, silence, 1961, p. 13)
made for a specific place, room, context, work adjusts to space, space determines the work or influences heavily, creating a unique SITUATION
Collaborations with Patrick Franke.
The series MODULE 2 are works of installational performance concepts by Patrick Franke and Daniel Neumann. In this examination of the medium of electronic live concert for two performers different aspects of this constellation are scrutinized. This can be seen as predating the idea of a series, as the different MODULES each focus on a different question. In each concert formal arrangements, performative actions and musical scores create the structure of each overarching concert score and contain rigid parameters as well as, partially, the unforeseen.
The collaborative concept of MODULAR COLLABORATION was also initially develped by Franke and Neumann.
main decisions over a PROCESS in the work/PERFORMANCE have to be made LIVE
SPATIAL arrangement, long duration
a conversation or written exchange between two or more parties. usually the roles are divided into interviewer, who asks questions, and interviewed, who answers. these roles though are subject to dissolvements and blurrification.
piece performed with an audience present at the moment of PERFORMANCE
A compositional strategy (2006 - present)

MODULAR COLLABORATION describes the collaborative development of a systemic composition, which can either result in concert performances, releases, installations, or as most often, in hybrid formats. In a systemic composition participants are developing individual Modules. The Module is an acoustic and/or electronic instrument with a specific placement and role within an overall system, usually with both inputs and outputs. The placement in the system involves relating ones individual Module to the other Modules as well as to the site where the work is presented. Interconnectedness, sonic exchange and a networked interpretation of a given material and its conversion to various media is the key strategy to develop these systems:: e.g. a field recording becomes the structure for a graphic score which is played by two instrumentalists whose amplified sound is filtered and mixed by two electronics performers of which one is re-amplifiing her/his/their output in an adjacent room whereas the other is feeding it back to a speaker right next to the instrumentalists or to a multi-channel speaker array around the audience.
The goal is to explore and experiment with unusual ways of composing and collaborating. Through MODULAR COLLABORATIONS a non-hierarchical, de- centralized form of organization is put into practice, replacing the single artist or composer as the creative genius. Here, interconnected equals develop systems of sonic and structural exchange in a process of non-linear self-organization.
The name of the respective group is formed by listing the last names of all participants in alphabetical order.
a sound work for more than 2 loudspeakers in various arrangements, spatialization of sound is important part of compositional process
the practice of OBJECT-ARTICULATION has been developed in collaboration with juan betancurth starting in 2013 and becoming one of neumann's main approaches to making sound sculptures and installations. specific technological relics - often found objects - get stripped of their everyday functions and meanings, and are put into an ambivalent, yet charged, ontological space. the object becomes sculptural and temporal. the sonic material is then imagined as an expression of the object itself, a speculative voice, a generative, complex dialogue between the objects themselves and the space-field housing them. space, object and situation become a continuum, not separated entities. sound facilitates this continuum and invites the listener to become part of it. multiple objects are grouped and installed as part of a new system - a temporal systemic composition - that seems to follow new rules, with explicit site-sensitivity. FOR SITE. the group of objects is then sonically articulated on site, as an ensemble. the sonic component of the objects is therefore always being modified, changing depending on the context, meaing each time they’re getting installed somewhere.
 
the act of performing a ceremony, play, piece of music, presented before an audience, LIVE event
a series of actions and operations, LIVE, never fully predictable
project for radio or use of radio as material. medium-specific.
recording as an artistic gesture is part of the piece. this TAG does not necessarily indicate that the piece is a recorded piece, produced in a studio and made for preservation. for that s. STUDIO-FOR-TAPE. recording can be used as a method within pieces, exploring aspects of its PROCESS.
social situation is an integral and designed/composed part
a shape, an object in space, can be presented in different spaces, not specific FOR_SITE
the open factors for a practice outside of the ereignis (event, special event, happening) are put into play to liquidate the spectacle complex. the parameters of the found surroundings are twisted to create a tension in the here and now. for example, if there are chairs, don't put them in rows. if there are ladders, leave them around; go for ambiguity, not (corporate) presentation standards. to work with SITUATION is not specific to any particular work, and is a factor for anything that's produced and presented, but to varying degrees. the TAG is used when the SITUATION was or is an important factor in the work. FOR SITE would be related, yet SITUATION is more about the tweaks, about providing a framework for the work, and the creation of a new place to be, not about using the site as content of the work.
this is also in reference to neumann's curatorial practice, where he organizes public programs and events. these are more focused on community, artistic experimentation and not the new fetish of the special event, shiny intellectual entertainment, or the art spectacle. SITUATION as occurrence, as experimentation within structures. santos was Closed. chelsea is dead on mondays. Contemporary Temporary.
all content and presence in PERFORMANCE by neumann
SOUNDFIELD is the name for the multi-dimensional composed space in combination with the found listening space. in soundfield composition sounds are projected into the architectural three-dimensional space in which the sounds resonate and reverberate. through resonance, reverberation and other effects various characteristics of the physical space are being emphasized, articulated, transformed, fluidified, fictionalized and experienced from within by the listeners. sound, listener and architecture are woven together. the physicality and materiality of sound itself is foregrounded and varied over time. sound becomes the sculptural gestalt, yet always in service of the lived listening experience and to make space felt. the loudspeakers are ideally hidden, or at least shifted into the background.
the formal spatial arrangement / layout is an integral part of the piece, allowing different perspectives depending on the position of the viewer
pieces that were produced for tape, most likely in a studio. this is the opposite approach to FOR-SITE.
FROM WITHIN A FIELD is an ongoing electroacoustic live performance or installation for multi-channel speaker systems that started in 2013. Neumann is using the loudspeakers in interaction with the architectural or environmental space as his instrument to live-compose a spatial sound field. It is adaptable to very different situations and has been performed on systems ranging from 6 guitar amps to a 24.4 3D-speaker array.