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Sonic Arts Network was a UK-based organisation, established in 1979, that aimed to enable both audiences and practitioners to engage with the art of sound through a programme of festivals, events, commissions and education projects. Its honorary patron was
Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...
. On 1 October 2008 the Sonic Arts Network merged with the
Society for the Promotion of New Music The Society for the Promotion of New Music (SPNM), originally named The Committee for the Promotion of New Music, was founded in January 1943 in London by the émigré composer Francis Chagrin, to promote the creation and performance of new music in ...
, the British Music Information Centre (BMIC) and the Contemporary Music Network to create a new organisation to promote contemporary Music in the UK called
Sound and Music Sound and Music is the UK's national agency for new music, established on 1 October 2008 from the merger of four existing bodies working in the contemporary music field: the Society for the Promotion of New Music (SPNM), the British Music Inform ...
. Sonic Arts Network's activities separated into three main areas: * Activities – Events, regular festivals such as Cut and Splice and Expo, tours and commissions. * Education – national education project Sonic Postcards, artist workshops and talks. * Network – Sonic Arts Network was a membership organisation that acted as a hub of information, opportunities and publications for the UK sonic arts scene.


Activities

Every year, Sonic Arts Network produced a number of nationwide commissions and projects in partnership with funding agencies, sponsors, broadcasters and venues. The aim of these activities was to bring some of the best new and existing work by sound artists from around the world to the UK. Sonic Arts Network's main activities included: Cut and Splice, Expo Plymouth 2007, Beach Singularity and Vacant Space.


Cut and Splice

Cut and Splice is a festival of experimental electronic music that brings together international artists to premiere new work or recreate seminal historical pieces. The event has previously featured
Bernard Parmegiani Bernard Parmegiani (27 October 1927 − 21 November 2013) was a French composer best known for his electronic or acousmatic music. Biography Between 1957 and 1961 he studied mime with Jacques Lecoq, a period he later regarded as important to his ...
,
François Bayle François Bayle (born 27 April 1932, in Toamasina, Madagascar) is a composer of Electronic Music, Musique concrète. He coined the term ''Acousmatic Music''. Career In the 1950s he studied with Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz S ...
,
Yasunao Tone (b. 1935) is a multi-disciplinary artist born in Tokyo, Japan and working in New York City. He graduated from Chiba University in 1957 with a major in Japanese Literature. An important figure in postwar Japanese art during the sixties, he was acti ...
and
Ars Electronica Ars Electronica Linz GmbH is an Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in Linz in 1979. It is based at the Ars Electronica Center (AEC), which houses the Museum of the Future, in the ...
Prize-winner
Eliane Radigue Eliane can refer to: Éliane * Éliane a French feminine given name ** Éliane, the name for Hill A1 in the 1954 battle of Dien Bien Phu taken by Colonel General Nguyễn Hữu An * Pierre Éliane (1955), French singer and Carmelite friar Eliane I ...
. Some of the artists featured in Cut and Splice
Acousmonium The Acousmonium is the sound diffusion system designed in 1974 by Francois Bayle and used originally by the Groupe de Recherches Musicales at the Maison de Radio France. It consists of 80 loudspeakers of differing size and shape, and was designed ...
2006 at the ICA included
Russell Haswell Russell Haswell (born 1970, Coventry) is an English multidisciplinary artist. He has exhibited conceptual and wall-based visual works, video art, public sculpture, as well as audio presentations in both art gallery and concert hall contexts. ...
, John Wall, Hecker,
Michel Chion Michel Chion (born 1947) is a French film theorist and composer of experimental music. Life Born in Creil, France, Chion teaches at several institutions in France and currently holds the post of Associate Professor at the University of Paris III ...
, Christian Zanési, Philip Jeck,
Carl Michael von Hausswolff Carl Michael von Hausswolff (born 1956) is a composer, visual artist, and curator based in Stockholm, Sweden. His main tools are recording devices (camera, tape deck, radar, sonar) used in an ongoing investigation of electricity, frequency, ar ...
,
Zbigniew Karkowski Zbigniew Karkowski (born 14 March 1958 – 12 December 2013) was a Polish experimental musician and composer. Karkowski was born on 14 March 1958 in Krakow, Poland. He studied composition at the State College of Music in Gothenburg, Sweden, ae ...
and
Hans-Joachim Roedelius Hans-Joachim Roedelius (born 26 October 1934) is a German electronic musician and composer, best known as a co-founder of the influential 'kosmische' groups Cluster and Harmonia. He also performed in the ambient jazz trio Aquarello, and relea ...
.


Expo Festival

Since 1997, the Expo Festival is the playground of the
experimental music Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...
and
sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...
scene in the UK. Free and open to the public, the event mobilises a national network of artists and engages with communities from all backgrounds – placing sonic art and the people who make it, in direct contact with the public. Expo 2006 explored the inner, outer and public spaces of
Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
. The festival included sound installations at the
Cornerhouse Cornerhouse was a centre for cinema and the contemporary visual arts, located next to Oxford Road Station on Oxford Street, Manchester, England, which was active from 1985–2015. It had three floors of art galleries, three cinemas, a booksho ...
by
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
based sound art collective Staalplaat Soundsystem who presented ''The Ultrasound of Therapy''; Bob Levene's newly commissioned work ''The Space Between – Experiments for Speakers'',
Helmut Lemke Helmut Lemke (29 September 1907 – 15 April 1990) was a German politician of the NSDAP and CDU, and Minister-President of Schleswig-Holstein (1963–1971). He was born in Kiel and died in Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officia ...
's new work ''KLANGELN 7'', and the art collective Owl Project performed a work called ''Sound Lathe''. There was also a performance by Norwegian female electro/instrumental improv group SPUNK and
Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
sound arts activists Dreams of Tall Buildings performing the first graphic score in 40 years by
Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...
artist and founder of the band
The United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
,
Joseph Byrd Joseph Hunter Byrd, Jr. (born December 19, 1937) is an American composer, musician and academic. After first becoming known as an experimental composer in New York City and Los Angeles in the early and mid-1960s, he became the leader of The Un ...
. Victoria Baths, winner of
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
's 2004 ''
Restoration Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to: * Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage ** Audio restoration ** Film restoration ** Image restoration ** Textile restoration * Restoration ecology ...
'' competition, saw over 600 people attend a day of site-specific happenings that utilised the spaces and acoustics of the listed building with a programme of performances and installations. The focus for Expo 2007 shifts to
Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth ...
and the South West of England where Expo will be presented in partnership with the
University of Plymouth The University of Plymouth is a public research university based predominantly in Plymouth, England, where the main campus is located, but the university has campuses and affiliated colleges across South West England. With students, it is the ...
's i-DAT (Institute of Digital Art and Technology). This weekend of performance, exhibition and presentation will take place between 22–25 June 2007 across a variety of public venues in Plymouth including a selection of outdoor performance spaces, club spaces and an historic architectural space. Online works will also be part of the activities.


Beach Singularity

Beach Singularity is a celebration of the British seaside. Set in an afternoon, the piece involves hundreds of holidaymakers of all ages in a bizarre and creative performance featuring a marching band, interactive electronic sound, beach activities and sound games. Supported by Contemporary Music Network (CMN), Beach Singularity will tour 3 seaside towns in August 2007. Composed and devised by
Trevor Wishart Trevor Wishart (born 11 October 1946) is an English composer, based in York. Wishart has contributed to composing with digital audio media, both fixed and interactive. He has also written extensively on the topic of what he terms " sonic art", a ...
, Beach Singularity received its first performances on the beaches of
Morecambe Morecambe ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the City of Lancaster district in Lancashire, England. It is in Morecambe Bay on the Irish Sea. Name The first use of the name was by John Whitaker in his ''History of Manchester'' (1771), w ...
,
Cleveleys Cleveleys is a town on the Fylde Coast of Lancashire, England, about north of Blackpool and south of Fleetwood. It is part of the Borough of Wyre. With its neighbouring settlement of Thornton, Cleveleys was part of the former urban distric ...
, St. Annes, and
Southport Southport is a seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. At the 2001 census, it had a population of 90,336, making it the eleventh most populous settlement in North West England. Southport lies on the Irish ...
in the summer of 1977 as part of the Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations.


Commissions

Sonic Arts Network aimed to support the development of both emerging and established artists in the UK through a rolling programme of commissions that in recent years has commissioned new work for performance and installation across the UK from artists including
Kaffe Matthews Kaffe Matthews is a British electronic composer and sound artist. She collaborated on the work ''Weightless Animals'', which won a BAFTA Scotland award. Biography Matthews is from Good Easter in Essex, England.Justin Bennett Justin Bennett is an American studio and live session musician and producer. He has been working professionally since 1995 since his first project Professional Murder Music featured in the hit Arnold Schwarzenegger film '' End of Days'' and he ...
, People Like Us, Ergo Phizmiz, Dreams of Tall Buildings and Bob Levene.


Education

Sonic Arts Network undertook its first formal education project at the 1989
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (also known by the acronym HCMF, stylised since 2006 as the lowercase hcmf//) is a new music festival held annually in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. Since its foundation in 1978, it has featured ...
pioneered by Robert Worby and Ian Dearden with composer
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
. After the appointment of Paul Wright as Education Officer in 1990 Sonic Arts Network provided projects for the
South Bank Centre Southbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues in London, England, on the South Bank of the River Thames (between Hungerford Bridge and Waterloo Bridge). It comprises three main performance venues (the Royal Festival Hall including the Nat ...
,
The Science Museum The Science Museum is a major museum on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, London. It was founded in 1857 and is one of the city's major tourist attractions, attracting 3.3 million visitors annually in 2019. Like other publicly funded ...
,
Canary Wharf Canary Wharf is an area of London, England, located near the Isle of Dogs in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Canary Wharf is defined by the Greater London Authority as being part of London's central business district, alongside Central Lo ...
,
Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
's Symphony Hall, many other venues in the UK and in Budapest and Tokyo. Electroacoustic composers involved included Robert Worby, Trevor Wishart, Stephen Montague, Alistair MacDonald, Duncan Chapman, Peter Cusack as well as video artist Stewart Collinson and poet Matthew Sweeney. In 2000 Sonic Arts Network led the education programme for
Sonic Boom A sonic boom is a sound associated with shock waves created when an object travels through the air faster than the speed of sound. Sonic booms generate enormous amounts of sound energy, sounding similar to an explosion or a thunderclap to t ...
at London's
Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the Roy ...
.


Sonic postcards

The main branch of Sonic Arts Network's recent Education programme was Sonic postcards which aimed to explore and compare the local sound environments of young people across the UK; the impact of sound on our lives; and the possibilities for creativity through the interaction of these sounds with the internet. 52 schools from across the UK took part in its first year. The project was aimed at pupils between the ages of 9–14 in primary, secondary and special schools. Each project provided pupils with the opportunity to record and gather sounds to use as the basis of their sonic postcards. The pupils became sound designers by composing and structuring their own sonic postcards which were emailed to other schools that participated in the project. All the sonic postcards were then uploaded to the Sonic postcards website.


Network

Sonic Arts Network was a membership organisation with over 600 members. This community of artists, organisations and the wider public with an interest in
sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...
and
experimental music Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...
was served by the Sonic Arts Network through a combination of online services, performance, exhibition and educational opportunities and a range of specially curated CDs and newsletters.


CD series

These guest-curated CD were released several times a year; accompanying the aural element of the publication was a richly produced booklet that often underpinned and contextualised the themes explored on the CD. Issues were curated by
Nicolas Collins Nicolas Collins (born March 26, 1954 in New York City) is a composer of mostly electronic music, a sound artist and writer. He received his BA and MA from Wesleyan University, and his PhD from the University of East Anglia. Upon graduating from ...
, editor-in-chief of the
Leonardo Music Journal ''Leonardo Music Journal'' is an annual multimedia peer-reviewed academic journal (print and audio CD) published by the MIT Press on behalf of Leonardo, The International Society of the Arts, Sciences and Technology. The journal was established i ...
and Chair of the Department of Sound at the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
, who developed a theme based around silence. Kenny Goldsmith, a writer, poet and founder of
UbuWeb UbuWeb is a web-based educational resource for avant-garde material available on the internet, founded in 1996 by poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives. Philosop ...
, who trawled his archives to create a compilation of sound poetry. Japanese performance artist, Junko Wada curated a deeply personal selection of music, produced by a process of curation, performance and collaboration. Professor
Andrew Hugill Andrew Hugill (born 1957) is a British composer, writer and academic. He is both a professor of music and a professor of creative computing. He directs the Creative Computing programme at University of Leicester. Biography Andrew Hugill studi ...
explored the French absurdist movement
'Pataphysics Pataphysics (french: 'pataphysique) is a "philosophy" of science invented by French writer Alfred Jarry (1873–1907) intended to be a parody of science. Difficult to be simply defined or pinned down, it has been described as the "science of ima ...
– a CD which travels from unheard
Soft Machine Soft Machine are a British rock band from Canterbury formed in mid-1966 by Mike Ratledge (keyboards, 1966–1976), Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals, 1966–1971), Kevin Ayers (bass, guitar, vocals, 1966–1968) and Daevid Allen (guitar, 1966–196 ...
tracks,
Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
and
Gavin Bryars Richard Gavin Bryars (; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer and double bassist. He has worked in jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, avant-garde, and experimental music. Early life and career Born on 16 January 1943 in ...
and through to
Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by wikt:nonconformity, nonconformity, Free improvisation, free-form improvisation, sound experimen ...
's former lover, Nigey Lennon and a piece of silence that predates
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
by 70 years by
Alphonse Allais Alphonse Allais (20 October 1854 – 28 October 1905) was a French writer, journalist and humorist. Life Allais was born in Honfleur, Calvados (department), Calvados. He died in Paris. Work He is the author of many collections of whimsical writ ...
. Ben Watson delivered a post-Allais polemic through a disgruntled whiny from the Esemplasm. Tim Steiner's ''Big Ears'' unearthed the lost art of Radio broadcasting and
Irwin Chusid Irwin Chusid (born April 22, 1951 in Newark, New Jersey) is a journalist, music historian, radio personality, record producer, and self-described "landmark preservationist". His stated mission has been to "find things on the scrapheap of history t ...
, broadcaster and author of ''Songs in the Key of Z'', delivered DIY and outsider nuggets. The series includes ''The Topography of Chance'' by
Stewart Lee Stewart Graham Lee (born 5 April 1968) is an English comedian, screenwriter, and television director. His stand-up routine is characterised by repetition, internal reference, deadpan delivery, and consistent breaking of the fourth wall. Lee b ...
, comedian and writer of Jerry Springer: The Opera. The CD explores spoken word, music and sound that all include some chance element in their creation. The last in the series was curated by
Andrew Kötting Andrew Kötting (born 16 December 1959) is a British artist, writer, and filmmaker. He made numerous experimental short films, which were awarded prizes at international film festivals. '' Gallivant'', was his first feature film, a road/home fil ...
, ''A psyche and its geography. Inside Out''. The series was produced in co-operation with London-based German graphic-designer Joerg Hartmannsgruber.


See also

*
Electronic art music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means (electroacou ...
*
Sound art Sound art is an artistic activity in which sound is utilized as a primary medium or material. Like many genres of contemporary art, sound art may be interdisciplinary in nature, or be used in hybrid forms. According to Brandon LaBelle, sound art ...
*
Experimental music Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...


References

{{reflist


External links


Sonic PostcardsBBC: Cut and Splice
Music organisations based in the United Kingdom