Non-Simultaneity and Immediacy | Utopia of Sound

A cooperation of the Department of Theory, Practice and Communicationof Contemporary Arts and the Department of Art and Digital Media incollaboration with the Austrian Film Museum.
Organized by Prof. Diedrich Diederichsen and Prof. Constanze Ruhm.

Participants: Nora Alter, Michel Chion, Christoph Cox, DiedrichDiederichsen, Caryl Flinn, Barbara Flückiger, Florian Hecker, TomHolert, Brandon LaBelle, Constanze Ruhm, Christian Scheib, TerreThaemlitz, Hildegard Westerkamp u.a.

Thursday May 29th 2008
Austrian Film Museum Vienna | Augustinerstrasse 1 | A-1010 Vienna

5:00 p.m.
Western Recording (USA 2003, 10:30 min), D: Mathias PolednaTom Holert - "The Site of Recording, Film, Pop and the Studio" (Lecture)

7:10 p.m.
Welcome to L.A. (USA 1976, 106 min), D: Alan Rudolph

9:15 p.m.
Elephant (USA 2003, 81 min), D: Gus Van Sant
Q & A with composer Hildegard Westerkamp

Friday May 30th 2008
Academy of Fine Arts | Schillerplatz 3 | 1010 Vienna | M13

Promises of Non-Simultaneity

11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Keynote: Michel Chion"Simultaneity and Synchronicity in Cinematic Audio-Visual Relations"
Responsant: Nora Alter"Sound Screens"

Utopia of Sound Politics

1:45 p.m. - 3:45 p.m.
Keynote: Christoph Cox"Sound and Utopia: Liberation, Resistance, Deterritorialization."
Responsant: Terre Thaemlitz"Please tell my landlord not to expect future payments because Attali'stheory of surplus-value-generating information economics only works ifmy home studio's rent and other use-values are zero."

Naturalism and Anti-Naturalism in Sound Arts

4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Keynote: Brandon LaBelle"Tongue-Tied"
Responsant: Christian Scheib"Speechless. The Utopia of Anti-Naturalism and its Restraints."

Soundperformances
Academy of Fine Arts | Atelierhaus | Lehàrgasse 6 | EG Nord

7:30 - 10:00 p.m. (Doors open at 7:00 p.m.)

Michel Chion
Tu (Extract) (1977-96)
Variations (1990)
Dix-sept minutes (2000)

Florian Hecker
Rearranged Playlist as Auditory Stream Segregation (2008)

Terre Thaemlitz
Terre's Confession (2007)
Trans-Portation (Scenes from Electroacoustic Radio Dramas) (2005)

Saturday May 31st 2008
Academy of Fine Arts | Schillerplatz 3 | 1010 Vienna | M13

Utopia of Immediacy (Part 2)

12:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Keynote: Hildegard Westerkamp<"Soundtracks Everywhere"
Responsant: Barbara Flückiger"Back to the Roots? On Natural, Technical, and Virtual Sound Objects."

Survival of Utopia in Sound Culture

2:45 - 4:45 p.m.
Keynote: Caryl Flinn"Film Music and the Absence of Emotion"
Responsant: Diedrich Diederichsen"The Index of Your Life - Pop-Songs, Interpellation, Nostalgia"

Conclusion / Panel

5:00 - 6:00 p.m.

In the last two decades there has been a significant boom in thecultural sensibility towards sounds and noise - a kind of sonic boomthat can, following the second meaning of this term, be seen as abreakthrough of the sonic itself. In the wake of this phenomenon, therelationship between Fine Arts and sound as a material of production onthe one hand, and the field of Sound Art which emerged since the 60s onthe other hand was recalibrated. Questions surrounding issues ofspatiality in the Fine Arts that gained in importance with the surge ofintermedia installations were increasingly posed on the basis ofexperimental sound. Pop music has recognised its specific relation tothe materiality of sound as its primary source and positioned it at thecore of self-reflective projects. Through the ubiquity of individualand ever-present sonic markers such as mobile phone jingles and soundinstallations in public space, everyday life has become the scene of acontinuous sonic semiosis. Undoubtedly, corporate sound design on theone hand, and advertising/branding machinery geared towards "soundlogos", on the other, have long since reacted to these novel signsystems. In cinema, the individual existence of the film soundtrack hasdeveloped in increasing detail in recent years - either by movingcontrary to the direction of the tempo of actions on screen or to themontage structure, or by orienting along pre-existing music as well ascultural resonances beyond cinematic immanence. By now, thosetechniques have reached mainstream cinema as common means ofproduction.