In this workshop, Francisco Lopez will discuss how his sound creative practice has been shaped over the past 40+ years by two main environments of influence that divert from common music training: the independent home-music worldwide network (starting in the late 70s) and the influence of ‘real world’ sonic environments, particularly from nature. Lopez will present these realms in a much wider social and historical context, recognizing and discussing the immense influence they have had on a gigantic community of sonic creators worldwide for several decades now.
Unlike the now classic canons of ‘field recordings’ or ‘soundscapes’, Francisco’s work with environmental recordings is not informed by representational goals but rather by the intention of creating new worlds of sonic experience based on a transformation of that source / inspirational ‘reality’. This approach is akin to the recent philosophical field of “object-oriented-ontology”; it considers sounds themselves as self-sufficient, first-order ontological entities, and proposes a deeper and more intimate connection with sonic ‘reality’ than that of traditional representation.
One of the main elements of this development of new sonic realities as public shared experiences has to do with a reconfiguration of sound systems and spaces towards an immersive experience that challenges the general canon of the stage. The stage is an ancient convention for the establishment of a contemplative experience that has been uncritically adopted by most Western musical practices. In the case of electronic / experimental music, the absence of a stage –and thus its perceptive and symbolic consequences- permits to reunite in a single person the generator / controller of sound, transfers the attention from the performer to the sound itself, and transforms the sonic experience from contemplative to immersive.
Reference essays:
’Social Experimental Audio’ http://www.franciscolopez.net/pdf/SEA.pdf
’Sonic Creatures’ http://www.franciscolopez.net/pdf/creatures.pdf
‘Against the Stage’ http://www.franciscolopez.net/pdf/stage.pdf
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Francisco López is internationally recognized as one of the main figures in the realm of experimental music and audio art. His experience in the field of sound creation and work with environmental recordings covers a period of more than forty years, during which he has developed an impressive sound universe that is completely personal and iconoclastic and based on a profound listening to the world. He has realized hundreds of sound installations, projects with field recordings, and concerts/performances in over eighty countries, including the main international concert halls, museums, galleries and festivals, such as: National Music Auditorium (Madrid), PS1 Contemporary Art Center (New York), Museum of Modern Art (Paris), International Film Festival (Rotterdam), Festival des Arts (Brussels), EMPAC (Troy, USA), Darwin Fringe (Darwin,
Australia), Institute of Contemporary Art (London), Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires, Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona, Center of Contemporary Art (Kita-Kyushu, Japan), National Museum Reina Sofía (Madrid), Spanish Pavillion at the Expo Dubai (United Arab Emirates), etc. His extensive catalogue of sound pieces –with live and studio collaborations, as well as projects curated and directed, with more than a thousand artists– has been released by nearly 500 recording labels / publishers all over the world. Among other prizes, López has been awarded five times with honorary mentions at the prestigious Ars Electronica Festival (Austria) and is the recipient of a Qwartz Award (France) for best sound anthology.
https://franciscolopez.bandcamp.com
