Process: attaching a tactile transducer (a device very similar to a loudspeaker but lacking a diaphragm) to suspended sheet metal scrap wired with piezo microphones (a poor man’s plate reverb); exciting the multiple microphones with the vibrations of sine tones and stirring them to vibrate sympathetically; mixing these tones through a bucket-brigade device analog delay with extremely short delay times to generate resonating self-oscillating feedback (changing the phase of the signal – this is basically how a comb filter works); before feeding the result back into the transducer to generate unbridled feedback shaking through the metal.
This feedback was then mixed with the output of several AM radios tuned to the end of their frequency bands, both sending out and receiving electromagnetic signals as they work to modulate and demodulate, generating all manner of signal interruptions and feedback oscillations themselves. There was additional use of a Max/MSP patch for the addition of some pitch-shifting of the signal and panning beyond what I can manage with an analog mixer. Finally, I attached contact microphones to my hairbrush (thanks Victoria Shen for inspiring that) and worked it through my long hair between mixing the various signals.
The focus on these sorts of processes moves me artistically (as do the sounds generated) and I have found my personal practice becoming very focused on the handmade; most of the guitar pedals, cables and microphones used were built at my desk. I usually decline to attribute any work of my own as queer but I will comment how this work has centred me in a time without a centre; where I have struggled with my own slow process of transition and exploring what that means to myself, the people in my life and grappling with the overwhelming reality of worsening material conditions for transgender people as their lives increasingly become a matter for political debate.
Note: This use of tactile transducers is a storied ‘experimental music’ technique that owes credit to both David Tudor’s Rainforests, Nicolas Collin’s teachings and the works of Chris Black & Christine White.
Feature image: gloria hello, documentation of process in studio, 2023.
Image description: An overhead view of sound equipment and materials on a hardwood floor. Visible are various devices including audio interface, guitar pedals, analog mixer, handheld radios, hifi amplifier, transducer + contact microphones attached to a pot lid.
gloria hello is a Saskatoon-based audio project focused on the exploration of their own extended processes and subjective perceptions of the materiality of sound – and the infinite amplification of silence (feedback) – employing an idiosyncratic amalgam of computers, electronic circuitry/hardware and physical recording mediums.
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