SoundCulture
YT: What is SoundCulture?
EO: SoundCulture means different things to different
people. The focus of the festival is the way that different cultures work
with sound outside of the area of music. Music is the most obvious area
of aural cultural expression, but there is a wide terrain of communication
and expression that happens in sound and not in the form of music. So
SoundCulture is a broad term that serves to highlight
some of these different ways of using sound and gives some focus to existing
sound practices that don't otherwise get much attention. The festival focuses
on activities in the Pacific Region because there are a number of things
that happen quite differently than they do in Europe: different ways of
thinking and different manners of working with sound. When the festival
was first put together in 1991 it was designed to be a Pacific Region Festival
and we decided keep it that way for this edition of it. We had a meeting
of the international committee here during the festival and we talked a
little bit about expanding into Europe and we decided for the moment not
to. Mainly it came down to the fact that 1) the Pacific sensibility is a
special thing which is worth preserving; and 2) although there are a great
deal of interesting sound activities in Europe, there are already plenty
of venues for it so they are not hurting for more.
YT: How was SoundCulture developed?
EO: It was started by a number of artists and organizers in Sydney. In Australia
there is a particular stream of sound art work that has been developing
for quite a while, and eventually some of the people involved with it wanted
to put together a showcase for it. There is also a long-running program
on ABC radio (Australia Broadcast Corporation) which is the nationwide radio
network there called "Listening Room." Every week for two hours
there is a broadcast of all sorts of experimental sound work. So in terms
of national consciousness there is already something on the air every week,
and all over Australia you can tune into the program - although I am sure
it is not one of the higher-rated programs on the radio. So there is a regular
representation of experimental sound work in a relatively mainstream venue,
and this has certainly helped to alert a wide audience to the fact that
this kind of sound work exists and is a flourishing field. So the combination
of that and the presence of a number of artists doing interesting works
made a good situation in which to start the festival. At that festival in
1991 there were people from Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the US, giving
it the Pacific flavor that it has maintained. A small working group was
formed at that festival to plan the direction of future editions of SoundCulture,
and it was decided that next ones would be in Japan and then the US.
So the one in Tokyo happened in '93, and then it was our turn here. Originally
ours was going to happen last year, but for various reasons it was not going
to work to get all the organizations involved at some point during '95 so
we decided to put that off to '96. The
next one will probably be in New Zealand, but it is not certain yet. If
it does happen there then it will be '98 or '99.
YT: How did you get involved in SoundCulture?
EO: I knew some of the people who have been in the previous editions and
a couple of people who would had been the key organizers here ended up moving
to Australia. They were not around to organize it, but there was still a
group of us who were interested in trying to make it happen. We got together
and started planning about two years ago, a little longer actually. Eventually,
just to make this run more smoothly, I agreed to be the director so that
we could be more focused and have one central person who would know what
was going on. Everything was run on a volunteer
basis, and of course that makes it difficult to do things efficiently, but
with me as the director and some other people taking care of specific things,
we got everything to happen. We didn't have an office or anything, I just
ran everything out of my laptop computer.
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