Hadi Bastani Sound Artist Musicologist Sonic Arts Research Centre SARC Queens University Belfast ID: 812844
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Collaborative Composition as Ethnographic Research in Iran’s Digital Arts and Experimental Electronic Music Scene
Hadi Bastani Sound Artist :: Musicologist Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC) – Queen’s University Belfast hbastani01@qub.ac.uk
Slide2Slide3Internet Users (2010-2016)Grey(left): Users (Million)
Red (right): % PopulationSource: The Statistical Center of Iran
Slide4Software
Replacing
Conventional
Musical
Instruments
Slide5Azureus
Vuze
Source:
wiki.vuze.com
Slide6Paytakht
Computer Complex
Source:
foursquare.com
Slide7Technological and Social Transformation
Matchbox at
Niavaran
Culture Centre
Tehran (2015)
Source: https://
www.middleeasteye.net
Slide8Technological and Social Transformation
Rojin playing at SET X CTM Festival Tehran (2018)Source: setfest.org
Slide9New Music Emerging on Social Media
What?Software-based electronic musicGenre aesthetics: ambient, glitchWhere?Forums
Facebook and SoundCloud
Public venues across the country
When?
2009-10
Slide10New Music Emerging on Social Media
I got to know these people who are now my friends and colleagues from social media, particularly from Facebook and Soundcloud. […] The relationship with our audience is also made possible via these networks. We promote our music, share it, send it to labels and peers across the world. We also sell tickets for our events in Iran on social media. We wouldn’t have audience inside the country if it wasn’t for the possibilities of social networking via the internet. - Shahin Entezami (aka Tegh), Interviewed via Skype (7 Apr. 2017)
Shahin (b. 1991) is
a Tehran-based electronic producer
Slide11Musical choices can represent ideological and aesthetic affinities across the world –
Stokes 1993
Slide12Digital Arts and Experimental Electronic Music Practices in Iran
Experimental and independent Predominant usage of digital interfaces (laptop, software, plugins, controllers, and so on)Reliant upon the internetConcerned with the material basis of music/art Sonic Aesthetics involve electroacoustic, ambient, glitch, noise, and idm music (Girih:
a compilation album released through the label Opal Tapes in Sep. 2018 is a sample for the kind of sonic aesthetics the music ‘scene’ represents)
Presented mainly in the form of laptop performances or as sound,
audiovisual
, audio and/or video reactive installation
Audiovisual
performances are common
Presented mainly in gallery and black-box settings (maximum 200 seated audience)
SET Experimental Arts Events and Tehran Digital Arts Exhibition (TADAEX) as the main platforms
Slide13Cosmopolitan Imaginaries, Aesthetic Affinities, and the Internet
‘[My practice initially] just developed out of me annoying everybody I knew with my new tracks in and around 2008. I think me and a couple of other friends were hoping to get feedback on what we did so we joined forums that allowed you to post tracks to get feedback, after that it became obvious to us that despite having some non-responsive people here and there, most people doing this kind of music or releasing it were constantly online and looking for new stuff. So yeah, it’s just about finding a label or an artist who you think has same interests as you and maintaining a friendly and ongoing dialogue and support.’ - Siavash Amini’s
interview on
musicmap.global
(15 Oct. 2018)
Siavash
(b. 1987) is a Tehran-based electronic ambient producer
Slide14SET members setting up for
Siavash Amini and Saffron Keira’s performance Tehran (2016)Source: straylandings.co.uk
Collaborative Composition as Ethnographic Research in Iran’s Experimental Electronic Music ‘Scene’
Slide15Digital Arts and Experimental Electronic Music in Iran
TADAEX/NODE/Goethe Institute 2016 TehranSource: Node Forum for Digital Arts on Flickr
Slide16Digital Arts and Experimental Electronic Music in Iran
Experimental and independent Predominant usage of digital interfaces (laptop, software, plugins, controllers, and so on)Reliant upon the internetConcerned with the material basis of music/art Sonic Aesthetics involve electroacoustic, ambient, glitch, noise, and idm music (Girih:
a compilation album released through the label Opal Tapes in Sep. 2018 is a sample for the kind of sonic aesthetics the music ‘scene’ represents)
Presented mainly in the form of laptop performances or as sound,
audiovisual
, audio and/or video reactive installation
Audiovisual
performances are common
Presented mainly in gallery and black-box settings (maximum 200 seated audience)
SET Experimental Arts Events and Tehran Digital Arts Exhibition (TADAEX) as the main platforms
Slide17Collaborative composition as ethnographic research
Slide18Collaborative composition as ethnographic research
From Participant-Observer to Researcher/Participant-Collaborator
Slide19intra.view: a collaborative composition
Slide20intra.view: a collaborative composition
Sohrab had recently finished his Masters degree in computer-assisted composition using non-standard synthesis techniques (2018), at the Institute of Sonology in Royal Conservatory of Den Haag, and travels frequently to Iran.
Sohrab
Slide21intra.view: a collaborative composition
Kiana is now based in Tehran and works as a cinematographer and video artist. She has completed in 2015 a degree in New Technologies in Art with a focus on video art in Milan.
Kiana
Slide22intra.view: a collaborative composition
Ramin is musician and designer based in Tehran.
Ramin
Slide23intra.view: a collaborative composition
Mo is based in New Zealand where he works as a lecturer in Music Technology at Victoria University of Wellington. He also travels frequently to Iran.
Mo
Slide24intra
view
.
Slide25intra.view: a collaborative composition
Intra.view started with writing a generative programme that operates according to a self-regulating feedback mechanism. It involves two distinct parts. The first part is my response to the limited set of pre-programmed material. In this part I improvise using the available objects, record the outcome, and compose with it.
The second part
is generated through a self-regulating mechanism based on a feedback system, in which the programmed objects respond to each other resulting in a spare soundscape.
Slide26intra.view: a collaborative composition
Limitation not merely as a stimulus engendering creative responses but also as a metaphor for circumstances in which artists, in the broadest sense, make work in Iran.
Slide27intra.view: a collaborative composition
I grew up among individuals who were seriously gripped by the transformation in Iranian arts with modern influences. Shiraz Festival [1967–77], for instance, was influential in spreading new forms of arts and music. Also, even in the suffocating days of 1980s you would still hear electronic music in TV and Radio as background to other programmes such as weather forecast. Many famous works of the 60s and 70s were used in TV and Radio—of course all the copyright stuff was ignored [he laughs]—from Vangelis to Pink Floyd to Jean-Michel Jarre. I mean such aesthetics and influences did not fully disappear after the revolution. Such stimuli in my surrounding did certainly influence my taste.
- Sohrab, Interviewed via Skype (4 Feb. 2018)
Slide28intra.view: a collaborative composition
There is a wave-like feel to your work. Like waves hitting the shore, the [sonic] events in your piece come to the foreground of attention and fade to the background in varying intervals, both in big and small chunks. I decided to retain this characteristic in my response. […] Regarding my own work, however, I should say that whatever you want to hear is already there. I have no more comment to add. - Ramin, Interviewed via Skype (4 Feb. 2018)
Slide29intra.view: a collaborative composition
***Foreground / background segregation in auditory perception***
Slide30intra.view: a collaborative composition
I was listening to the news before starting to work on the piece. So, I still had all those images of Syria and other stuff in my head. I began by recording some objects in my flat. I later realised that the distant sound of TV was also recorded, which was not my intention. But, it was my decision not to clear that up. Now that I listen to them again I actually can hear a noise on the background that I wasn’t aware of while making the recording, which I know comes from the airport and washing up of the plane engines. You know, my previous flat was in a residential complex located near Mehrabad [airport in west-end of Tehran]. I have also added some audio that I had recorded in Milan during a festive night filled with the sound of fireworks and ambulance sirens. It felt right to use them as they sonically invoked an environment close to that of what I heard on TV. I also improvised a bit with my voice on top of all that
…
- Kiana, Interviewed via Skype (5 Feb. 2018)
Slide31intra.view: a collaborative composition
‘The most distinguishing feature of the auditory experience is its capacity to reconfigure the space.’ (Born 2015:3) ‘Music is always (but variably) experienced through a constellation of aural, notational, visual, performative, corporeal, social, discursive, and technological forms—forms that mediate music (or sound).’ (Born 2015:9)
Slide32intra.view: a collaborative composition
Music:As inherently mediationalIs always (but variably) experienced through a constellation of aural, notational, visual, performative, corporeal, social, discursive, and technological forms that mediate music
Is transformed
by its social manifestations or embodiments as the social is being produced and transformed by music.
- Georgina Born (2015:9)
Slide33intra.view: a collaborative composition
This project, with a focus on the creative process and collective experience, offered an opportunity for co-ordinated artistic practice, exchange, and ethnographic research. Through a process of dialogue and mutual commentary, issues regarding music/sound in relation to space and/or place, composition and performance, socio-historical contexts, copyright law, the impact of broadcast media, digital technology, architectural forms, design aesthetics, cognition (perception of background versus foreground), and international politics, came into focus.
Slide34intra.view: a collaborative composition
The task of the ethnographer, in this context, apart from being a collaborator, becomes the examiner of various threads in different modes of practice, their relations, and their broader connections to the flows that are often understood by the artists/musicians to be external, hence secondary, to the processes of making.
Slide35Hadi Bastani
Researcher :: Sound Artist :: Composer Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC) – Queen’s University Belfast hbastani01@qub.ac.uk
Collaborative Composition as Ethnographic Research in Iran’s Experimental Electronic Music ‘Scene’