Sonic Art & Sound Design- P12 pot

My work encompasses anything that uses sound usually combined with objects, space, visual art and has a close relationship with context.. My work isn’t just about sound: it’s about telli

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Job no : 76098 Title : The Fundamentals Of Sonic Art Client : AVA

Scn : #150 Size : 200(w)230(h)mm Co : M11 C0 (All To Spot)(Coagl)

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JANEK SCHAEFER

Interview

How would you describe your work?

I’m a sound artist My work encompasses

anything that uses sound usually combined

with objects, space, visual art and has a

close relationship with context

Do you see it fitting into an existing

category or being on its own?

My work isn’t just about sound: it’s about

telling stories and about the world around

us, doing installations etc I don’t just

release it on CD for people to listen to on

headphones – it dabbles in the visual arts

so that half the time I’m a musician and

half the time I’m an artist, but mostly

both together So I combine categories,

and follow all those that come before me

I am comfortable being labelled as a

‘Sound Artist’

Does this imply different mindsets

depending upon the project in question?

I have developed an overall approach as

to how I tackle a commission or an idea

I divide my work into ‘Head’ and ‘Heart’,

my head being concepts and heart being

emotions I try to balance the two

depending on the project I’m currently

working on a piece for CD called All

Bombing is Terrorism I want the track to

be the opposite of terror, which is often a

mental state The music is purely a peaceful and calm opposition to war

There’s a concept in there, where the emotional focus is flipped as a reaction to the context So the head and the heart are constantly vying for attention in my work

The important thing is trying to engineer what I want the end user to understand,

to experience If I’m doing an installation, I’m thinking practically about my plugs and sockets and budgets, but in that space, do I want them to be scared or

do I want them to think about the idea,

or do I want them to feel happy and warm and to love life? How important is

it that you understand the concept or how important is it that you just really enjoy

it without having to think about it too much? I work from what I want them to receive as an experience Ideally it should work on both levels depending on how deep you delve into the project

Do you think that’s something to do with having an architectural background?

Yes, I think it really is When I started my architecture degree, I got my first ever A grade for my first project, because I was encouraged to do things off my own back, not just repeat things as in school In architecture, we get set a brief, which is a situation that we have to resolve, and there are a million things that are involved

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ARTISTS AND THEIR MUSIC

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Left: Janek Schaefer performing live

Janek Schaefer often performs using

his self-built/invented record players

combined with objects, space and

visual art.

Image courtesy of Janek Schaefer.

in solving it, and that’s how I do all my projects – they are ‘briefs’ to me I don’t for example sit down and make music for leisure: I only do it when I’ve got a deadline and I’ve got a reason to make it

All Bombing is Terrorism has taken me two years of collecting one type of loop pedal but I hadn’t plugged them all together until someone said, ‘I want you

to do this track’ and I made it about the continuous cycles of war – the historical loop It gave me a reason to finally use the five loop pedals

How did the Triphonic Turntable come about?

I came up with it because I went to see a concert by Philip Jeck, who was

performing at the RCA one afternoon alongside Chris Watson who gave a lecture on field recording, and Panasonic who were creating raw, electrical, rhythmic music Philip showed a piece calledVinyl Requiem with 180 record players, all playing at once – a cacophony kind of orchestra I was trying to make music at the time using rhythm boxes and things because I was into techno and electronica and DJ-ing in the Art Bar I helped build at the RCA I made a little cassette album with this all-in-one Roland MC-303 Groove Box, and at the end of it I’d used all the sounds I liked – so I was

looking for more flexible and cheaper options to generate sound I then realised that vinyl is the most physical way that you can manipulate sound: it’s tactile, it’s hands-on, you can access it all at once, easily You can slow it down, break it, melt it: it’s really tangible – it’s just bumps in

a surface you can play with a finger nail

So I thought there are LPs and 7”s of every type of sound possible just lying dormant for 10p in shops all around the world and I thought, ‘I’ll do the opposite

of Philip’ I didn’t fancy having to drive a van with 180 turntables around the world like Philip, to try and start my career: I’ll build one record player which has got lots

of record players in one unit and you can change the sound as much as you can all the way from 1.5 to 77.5rpm It goes backwards or forwards and you can play

up to three discs at the same time It’s a very visual idea as well – people look at it and they go ‘A three-armed record player – what does that sound like?’ So you put

it on a postcard and send it out to other people who promote gigs, then some of them write back and you start travelling and meeting other like-minded people and

I started my career From the first gig I did, I got a record deal, then started being invited around the world and I make a living from it now full time (as well as being a full time ManMum)

JANEK SCHAEFER

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ARTISTS AND THEIR WORK

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JANEK SCHAEFER

Left: Performing ‘Skate’

In 2004, Janek Schaefer performed

Skate to an audience in Linz,

Germany The original concept was to

‘make a record that usurped the

deterministic spiral (and the

“anti-skate” mechanism) as a way of

playing and listening to sound and

vinyl.’ This was done by cutting

‘sound-scars’ on to a disc with a gramophone

lathe, which forced the stylus to

navigate its own random path across

the terrain of the physical/sonic

diversions The LP won an ‘Award of

Distinction’ at Prix ARS Electronica.

Right: Performing with the

Triphonic Turntable

Janek Schaefer frequently performs with his self-designed

instrument featuring a three

tone arm multi-record, reversible

play and vari-speed turntable.

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