Aura Satz

RAINER MARIA RILKE: PRIMAL SOUND <1919>
It must have been when I was a boy at school that the phonograph was invented. At any rate it was at that time a chief object of public wonder; this was probably the reason why our science master, a man given to busying himself with all kinds of handiwork, encouraged us to try our skill in making one of these instruments from the material that lay nearest to hand. Nothing more was needed than a piece of pliable cardboard bent to the shape of a funnel, on the narrower orifice of which was stuck a piece of impermeable paper of the kind used to bottle fruit. This provided a vibrating membrane, in the middle of which we stuck a bristle from a coarse clothes brush at right angels to its surface. With these few things one part of the mysterious machine was made, receiver and reproducer were complete. It now only remained to construct the receiving cylinder, which could be moved close to the needle marking the sounds by means of a small rotating handle. I do not remember what we made it of; there was some kind of cylinder which we covered with a thin coating of candle-wax to the best of our ability. Our impatience, brought to a pitch by the excitement of sticking and fitting the parts, as we jostled one another over it, was such that the wax had scarcely cooled and hardened before we put our work to the test.

(First Paragraph from short essay by Rilke about the photograph, click here for full essay)

We spent the day with artist Aura Satz who introduced us to a body of her work through an initial screening, which was then followed by group exercises playing with sound, drawing and ways in which our bodies can be used as a tool for reading sound through an image. I have posted a few videos from a final workshop we did using a Phonograph.

For more of Aura's work visit HERE

Reading Materials 

Paul Sharits, “Hearing:Seeing” in The Avant-Garde Film: A Reader of Theory and Critism, ed. P. Adam Sitney, pp. 255 – 260 (1978) (Here)

Aura Satz, “Shapes with the sound of their own making’ in Cabinet magazine pp. 33 – 39 (2011 – 2012) (Here) 

Silvia Federici, “Revolution at Point Zero – Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist struggle”  (2012) 

(Here)

Suggested Videos 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7K-Yp5CslI&list=PLDA37E83FBC9B310C

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiIB36ZY0WM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXkEL-X3zXs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EGFPZdiVqI

http://www.oskarfischinger.org/Sounding.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSkFs0I_mHM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiJR1ET715M

http://www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/guy_sherwin/index.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLsUhFawsZ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syjw1hJAADg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts5uT0Pdj4c

http://vimeo.com/20580405

http://vimeo.com/59974170