Sound Body: The Ghost of a Program

Author(s): David Toop

Source: Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 15, The Word: Voice, Language and Technology (2005),
pp. 28-35
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4540573
Accessed: 02-12-2016 00:53 UTC

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 Sound Body:
The Ghost of a Program

ABSTRACT

David Toop The author consider

importance of the v
a transformative instr
in 20th-century art, p
in relation to the tap
and digital audio tech
examines his collabora
oice is the sonic instrument with which we be- modes were interchangeable, be- with sound poet Bob
the 1970s and comp
gin as humans-beginning as an intricate enfolding ofcause innera printed poem could be a
with a recent gallery
form of notation for live interpre-
and outer, ear, lungs, throat, skull and mouth, abstract thought created with artist Jo
and physical projection, biology and consciousness, breath tation by voices, instruments and Research from the 19

and listening-and which develops as the articulation of electronics.

im- The intervention of the acoustic voice maski
subverted resonance is contraste
pulsion, feeling, word, speech, paralinguistic noise, even mu- machine in the visual
the use of analog tap
sicality, resonating in time, mind and the air of open sphere space. was paralleled by the sig- ing and the sonic pot
Throughout the 20th century, the voice was a prime site nificance
for of the tape recordercomputer
to audio softw
the redefinition of the body in relation to the machine Cobbing's
age, aural activities. In 1964,
programs both in stu

particularly during a rapidly developing era of disembodying Cobbing wrote his ABC in Sound,and an in improvised per
Finally, the author di
technologies such as wireless telegraphy, radio, telephone, exploration
cin- of each letter of the al-
the implications of th
ema, television, the tape recorder, electronic amplification phabet [3]. A number of audio ver- frontations between b
and the microphone. Temporal shift, spatial displacement sionsandwere created on tape, utilizing
machine.

the physical absence of the vocalizing agent, both implicit such familiar techniques of the pe-
and explicit in such communicative extensions of the riod body, as distortion, ring modulation,
suggest a disintegration of the image of the body as a symbol echo and tape-speed manipulation.
of unity. What Cobbing initially discovered through his use of the t
Through research and practice in the late 1960s and early recorder, however, was the inadequacy of his own voice.
1970s, I became aware of this atomization of word and voice-
word as sound, sound as meaning, sense and nonsense-in
the work of such important literary, artistic and musical fig- Fig. 1. Bob Cobbing, The Judith Poem, Part 1 of 3, 1971 [37].
ures as James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, John Cage, Antonin Ar- ( Estate of Bob Cobbing. Courtesy of Jennifer Cobbing.)
taud, Hugo Ball, Kurt Schwitters, F.T. Marinetti,Jack Kerouac,
Luciano Berio and Tristan Tzara. Simultaneously, the poten-
tial of the voice as a transformative instrument, both in ritual
and in art, became evident. Working in the abAna trio and
sextet with the English sound poet Bob Cobbing, for exam-
ple, gave me practical experience of the hinterland that exists
between vocal utterance and music [1]. Born in Enfield, near
London, in 1920, Cobbing absorbed the influence of many
writers, poets, composers and visual artists into his works with
words and so avoided the factionalism and dogma common to
practitioners of sound poetry, concrete poetry, text-sound and
Lettrism. Consequently, he established a pivotal role as a cu-
rator and small press publisher in the U.K., in addition to his
international presence as poet, artist and performer.
His work began with the word: stretched and disintegrated
into nonverbal sound in performance; broken into letterforms
and the blurred memory of word traces in visual poems (Fig.
1 and Frontispiece). The term poem is inadequate to describe
these works, created with cracked adhesive Letraset type or
with duplicating and photocopying machines [2]. In many
cases, the "text" has eradicated all trace of its origins in printed
language through misuse of the printing process. These two

David Toop (musician, composer, writer, researcher), 7 Topsfield Road, London, N8 8SN,
U.K. E-mail: <davidtoop@blueyonder.co.uk>. Web site: <www.davidtoop.com>.

Frontispiece. Bob Cobbing, The Judith Poem, Landscape

Variation, 1971 [36]. (@ Estate of Bob Cobbing. Courtesy
of Jennifer Cobbing.)

@2005 ISAST LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 15, pp. 28-35, 2005 29

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 Wasp Flute: bamboo, Maggie Nichols and Christine Jeffries, or
leather, thread,
beeswax, magpie feather. sound poets Cobbing, Henri Chopin,
the bi(s)onics instruments lengthc - 23internal
Bins. diameter -
ErnstJandl, Lily Greenham and Francois
I3/4ins.
WASP FLUTE Dufrene. "Communication with or from
Bi(s)onics: the science
of (sound) systems the spirit world is indicated by alteration
based on living things.
A duct flute is constructed.
of vocal tone, pitch or volume," I wrote
Fastened to one side of the This concept, first in 1974 for Kroklok magazine, "the sub-
flute is a small container, formulated in 1971,
p erforated on all sides by a/ --- encompasses Bionics: stitution of syllables within words, or a
tony sall holes. A very the science of systems
complete breakdown of normal speech
little jam is placed in thle based on living things;
bottom of the container. Ihe sonics or sounds; and conventions into nonsense sounds,
flute s then left in the bi (two). So - a groans, belches, monosyllables and so
open air during the suer - b combining of two
tife. When a wasp has enter- areas of study. on" [7]. 1 also looked for examples of nat-
ed the container the lid is
fastened in place. All the Bi(s)onics ural resonance as an enhancement of
The piece then begins - the instruments, events
drone of the wasp indicating and compositions sound, and the way in which this phe-
the shape and sound of the exemplify this concept. nomenon had been exploited as a kind
piece. After a short performance
on the flute the well-fed wasp Though many musical instruments imitate the calls or are fashioned of acoustic amplification for the voice
is then carefully released. - - in the shape of animals their incorporation of actual animal parts
is on an inert basis, ie. the animal is dead or has discarded the used
in theaters and churches. The Roman
part. This is true of bone trumpets or flutes, hide for drums, feathe architect Vitruvius had described the
a/ duct flute for decoration or windpipes for voice disguisers. The examples are
use of brass vases and similar vessels for
b/ container with lid innumerable. The only exception of which I am aware is the Live
and punched holes Beetle Jews Harp of Highlands New Guinea (I dothis
notpurpose
include in
Pigeo
his 1st-century work De
Whistles or Cow Bells as, in these cases, the instrument is attached
Architectura,
to the animal rather than vice versa). The idea does exist, though, i and the practice of embed-
other forms. For example, in Guiana, the South American shaman
ding earthenware
pupil eats crushed Sun Bee (a bee possessing a loud, persistant hum jars into walls or plac-
in order to improve his voice (ref. Trances, Audrey Butt, 1966. ing them close to the choir had been
Fig. 2. David Toop, Wasp Flute, 1973 [38]. (@ David Toop)
incorporated into the architecture of
many English churches during the Mid-
dle Ages [8].
During the course of these general re-
"When I was at school I had a very Cobbing's
fee- searches
approach to live work at- into aspects of sound, I un-
tempted
ble, stuttering voice," Cobbing told earthed the principle of vocal masking.
me in to go beyond the customary
2000, 2 years before his death. active performer-passive audienceAnrela-
exemplary, if obscure, account of this
sonic technology is contained in Henry
tionship of poetry readings or music
When I had my first tape recorder and
events. For him, sound poetry andBalfour's
con- paper "Ritual and Secular Uses
started reading stuff into it I really was
of Vibrating
crete poetry were impersonal forms
ashamed of it. I think the tape recorder that Membranes as Voice Dis-
helped-the fact that you can put a encouraged
little guisers," published in 1948 [9]. A zoolo-
participation, on occasion
sound in and amplify it and slow it todown
a point at which a kind of trancegist, collector, traveler and curator of the
state
and get the vibrations, going. I thought, Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford for 48
overcame inhibitions. "It is the poem it-
if you can do it on tape, why can't you do
self that matters," he told Eric Mottram,
years, Balfour had worked on the paper
it with your naked voice? [4]
"something that exists outside the until his death in 1939. As a collection of
self.
In a conversation with Eric Mottram, Certainly you have helped it into being, it illustrates his and the museum's
curios,
recorded at the National Poetry Centre but what exists is something outside predilection your- for assemblages of exotic ar-
in London in 1973 and published in Kon- self, and therefore it is an area in tifacts which organized according to a typolog-
textsound, Cobbing explained his view of not only you can join, but other ical people
system.
the significance of this discovery: can join" [6]. What Balfour had collected during his
It is a matter of understanding the nature
Working with Cobbing at that travels time,was evidence of an unusual group
of the voice, I think, and in using the tape particularly in the abAna trio of
with instruments,
per- used mainly during initi-
recorder, particularly if you mistreat it as cussionist Paul Burwell, stimulated ationmyceremonies, funeral rites and re-
I always do, you can find out a lot about growing interest in historical and lated events in which nonhuman entities
an-
the vibrations of the voice, about the
thropological instances of sound as an ex-were invoked and depicted. The method
physical nature of the voice [5].
pression of the extra-human. common to these ritual instruments was
This return to and reinforcement of Retrospectively, I assume that my to ob-
cover one opening of a resonator-
the body via the machine was unusual, sessional-with sound, a puzzle in itself, a bird's
be- wing bone, a fruit shell, spear
though not unique. At that time came
(asfocused
in on sound's transformative grass or a drum-with a membrane fash-
the present), a number of musicians power, ex-
both within individuals and com- ioned from locally available materials
perimented temporarily with electronics munities; its capacity to illuminatesuch and as spiders' egg cases, lizard skin or
or invented instruments before return- yet look beyond the human condition; a bat's wing. The membrane was acti-
ing to their instrument of virtuosity. andThethe ways in which sound can articu- vated by a speaking, singing or hum-
technically expansive possibilities late the complex interaction betweenming
of the hu- voice, and through the masking of
tape machine promised, both through mans and their environment. the voice by means of the quality of the
metaphor and actuality, an exploration Particularly intriguing were theresonatingclose tube and the buzzing of the
of the extra-human. In other words, the
parallels membrane, this same voice was trans-
in form, if not function, between
ecstatic
bodily potential implicit in extremes of vocalizations in ritual and sa- formed into the sonic embodiment of
cred contexts and the more conscious
vocalization or instrumental technique ancestral spirits, ghosts or whatever non-
glossolalia
could be realized through technology by human entity was integral to the cere-
of contemporary interpretive
vocalists
accessing realms that are unattainable for such as Cathy Berberian and observed by Balfour.
mony
the human performer. Joan La Barbara, improvising singers This was fascinating to me for a num-

30 Toop, Sound Body

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ber of reasons. The arcane nature of such
Albert Mayr and then released in 2001 on few indications of how such sounds might
sound tools was surprising enough, alongMayr's CD Suono Ambiente [16]. be drawn from stones, the only other
with the strange noises they produced,Looking back at this early work, I can clear instruction is: "Do not break any-
but I was also attracted to the fluencyappreciate
of its vulnerability to charges ofthing" [17]. Doubtless, there were vari-
movement between nature and culture: primitivism. After all, I was living in an ations between my need for simplicity
the way in which animal materials were urban center, London, and my first in- of means and Wolff's, but Wolff's essay
incorporated into the instruments, oftenstrument had been the electric guitar, yet "New and Electronic Music" indicates
to depict the sounds of birds or animalsthis attraction (regression, some might some concordance of approach. "It is sim-
say) to basic technology was not uncom- ply that personal expression, drama, psy-
in a context of supernatural significance.
Balfour gave the example of the Imbori- mon in an era in which the compulsion chology, and the like are not part of the
vungu whistle used by the Tiv people of
to dissolve oppressive social structures of- composer's initial calculation," he wrote.
northern Nigeria, Imbormeaning whistle, ten co-cxisted with a yearning for lost to- "The)y are at best gratuitous" [18].
and Vungu meaning owl. "In the tality. Tiv To be simple was to begin from This stripping back of musical inten-
scheme," wrote Balfour, "the owl (asscratch.
well Christian Wolff's Stones (1968), tion shares some aims with Cobbing's
as other birds and animals of nocturnal for example, asks performers to "make statement, quoted above, that "it is the
habits) is thought of as a being embod- sounds with stones." Beyond this, and a poem itself that matters, something that
ied with spirits which are active during
the hours of darkness" [10].
Given the sizable body of trenchant
criticism aimed at artists taking inspira-
Fig. 3. David Toop, The Howler Monkeys/The Rain/The Willing Vessel, for resonating p
tion from such sources [11], I have been
and voice orchestra of three or more [39]. ( David Toop)
wary of discussing these youthful enthu-
siasms in recent years. However, it has
become clear to me that creating artifi-
cial gaps in personal history leads to false the howler monkeys/the rain/the willin
readings of how certain ideas and prac- vessel
tices come to evolve. In 1971, I had for-
mulated the somewhat tongue-in-cheek Lor reawfn rtsd uej V -t -Mcsa. QF f tb ra
invention of Bi(s)onics: the science of
(sound) systems based on living things
[12]. To a degree, Bi(s)onics was a re-
sponse to the rise of environmentalism
and the ecology movement, although it
also had its origins in emergent thoughts
of mine on the interrelationship of 20th-
century music and its rapidly changing
environment, whether expressed by the
Italian Futurists and their intoxicated ap- Cal/b/
preciation of the industrial revolution a group of voices--.
and its aftermath or byJohn Cage and his vessels are made /papier mache and varnish, clay, etc/-*
"found" or chosen. One vessel per singer -*
silent work for listening, 4'33". Central as
they were to my development as a writer any
in vessel
solitude and/cave, box,
quiet each room/ finds
participant has athe
resonating
resonating frequency
and musician, they were barely formed frequency of their vessel by singing into the opening--
the group then assembles -----the piece proceeds
thoughts. Much later, they came to be ex-
pressed, more fully formed, in my book
A short glissando is sung by each individual into their
Ocean Of Sound [13]. vessel. They begin several tones above the resonating
These areas of activity-voice disguis- frequency and finish several tones below it. This is
repeated at various speeds, timbres and volumes until it
ers, sacred languages, resonance and en- becomes necessary to stop. Each individual sound will be
vironmental influence-converged in characterised by its sudden swelling as the resonating
my illustrated text pieces such as Wasp frequency is arrived at and passed. Pitch relationships
may be slightly varied during the piece y the addition
Flute (1973) (Fig. 2) [14], The Willing Ves- of small amounts of water to the vessels ......
sel/The Radiant Surface (1975-1976), The
Underwater Stridulators/A Willing Vessel The extraordinary song of the Howler :Ionkey - in consort
(1977) and The HowlerMonkeys/The Rain/ like the sound of an infinitely slow and barely modulating
The Willing Vessel (1977) (Fig. 3) [15]. The wind - serves to space out the troupe both morning and
night. The H1owler Monkey possesses his own willing vessel -
latter composition, a text instruction the hyoid bones within his throat are enor,,lously enlarged
piece for an ensemble of more than three and thus form a bone resonating chamber. The sound of a
,!rourp of these monk-eys is so remarkably akin to the
singers, explored the resonating fre- Tantric chant cf thne Gyume and yuto Z;onastcries -
quencies of portable vessels such as pots formerly of Tibet - tit I am tempted to suggest the
by inviting each vocalist to sing a short possibility of the monkeys using a similar vocal ability -
that is, tThe ability to chord -w.ith one voice. JEach monk
glissando beginning several tones above possessesed o this tochnique can form a chord - the
the resonating frequency of his or her re- fundamental, the fifth harmonic and the tenth harmonic.
spective vessel and ending several tones
below it. The piece was recorded in 1977,
in Florence, Italy, by an ensemble led by Wriht 1977 by Ouartz Publications. Aq71,/A17

Toop, Sound Body 31

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exists outside the self." A reaction against tive society that lives in hope of realiza- tape recorder on stage and then trans-
ostentatious self-expression, overblown tion at a future date, despite all signs to forming them with edits and processing
virtuosity and, as Wolff wrote, gratuitous the contrary. The connection is rarely in front of the audience.
drama, was replaced by experiments in straightforward. Today, of course, these possibilities
communality, ranging from the free im- After hearing an early 1970s perform- have become actualized and easily avail-
provisation of AMM and the Sponta- ance of The Great Learning during the able through digital audio technology.
neous Music Ensemble to the ad-hoc rites annual Proms (or BBC Henry Wood Software programs such as Max/MSP,
and heuristic ceremonies of the Scratch
Promenade Concerts, as they are more Supercollider and Ableton Live offer vo-
Orchestra or the group compositionsformally
of titled), held at the Royal Albert calists the possibility of processing their
Gentle Fire. Hall in London, I felt that the results own voices during a concert, and live
A beautiful example of the use of sim-
were striking, but they were too imper- electronics specialists such as Lawrence
ple, unadorned voices can be heard on for my taste. Paradoxically, thereCasserley and Joel Ryan have developed
sonal
recordings of the Scratch Orchestra's seemed
per- to be different types, or degrees,a methodology for the real-time trans-
formances of Paragraph 7 of Cornelius of impersonality, and I felt more at- formation of live inputs [20]. In 2001,
Cardew's Great Learning. In his origi-tracted, both aesthetically and politically,Casserley played in a trio with Cobbing
nal liner notes to the Deutsche Gram-
to Bob Cobbing's use of the voice-ex-and another pioneer of live electronic im-
mophon LP release of 1971, Cardew
pressive, individual, yet working withinprovisation, the late Hugh Davies [21],
a communitarian context-than to the
wrote: "Paragraph 7 is about the individ- processing signals from both players. This
ual voice and the sound it makes in rela- Scratch Orchestra's complex chord
fresh in
approach might have reconnected
tion to other voices" [19]. which all individuals were subsumed Cobbing with the formal innovations of
As with all Cardew's work, the compo- within the mass, allowed brieflyhis to tape
roamwork of the 1960s; by this time,
sitional process and method of perform- and then encouraged back into the however,
pack.he was close to the end of his
ance were inseparable from his ongoing Perhaps inevitably, a streak of lifePuri-
and unable to pursue it.
search for new models of social relations. tanism, even Luddism, infected the re- A characteristic of my own work that
Composed in 1968 as a setting of Confu- turn to basics that typified this page ofhas become increasingly apparent to me
cius's ethical and philosophical text of ca. history. Rightly or wrongly, certain is the productive if sometimes difficult
music
500 B.C., The Great Learningcould be kinds seen of technology-synthesizers such flow between research, writing, musical
as an exemplar of the notion of sound as the Moog, for example-seemed too composition and improvised perform-
body in the forms of both the healthy closely linked to the excesses of progres-ance. To give one example, my published
physical and social body and the struc- sive rock orjazz rock, or to the academic researches into hip-hop have greatly in-
ture of music. For Cardew, as for many remoteness
of of electroacoustic music. creased my referential frame of investi-
us at that time, the correlation between Sound poets such as Cobbing, Sten gationsHan-
into vocal dexterity and invention
musical organization and social organi- son, Ake Hodell, Bernard Heidsieck and and its relation to musical practice. At the
zation was assumed to be logical and Henri Chopin had all used the tape ma-time of writing, I was researching and cu-
somehow inevitable. Living in multilay- chine to transform their voices in differ- rating Cobbing's recorded work for an
ered, pluralist societies, we now know that ent ways, whether working in studios such exhibition held at the Bury Art Gallery
this correlation may be embedded to the as Fylkingen in Stockholm or on the in Lancashire in 2005 [22]. This project
point of near-invisibility in the sense that kitchen table. This was clearly a nearly is im-a mixture of discovery and return.
musical structure may reflect many com- possible option for live performance,What al- has become clearer during the re-
plex aspects of language, culture and so- though Chopin would extract didactic search process is the role of Cobbing as
cial organization or it may present an and dramatic potential from the chal- a mentor in my own trajectory, either in
ideal, a utopian proposal for an alterna- lenge by recording words into a Grundig the heat of performances or as a sup-
porter and publisher of some of the work
detailed above.

Fig. 4. Poster for Float event, Covent Garden, London, ca. 1968. (Artist unknown) Listening closely to his experiments
with voice and tape recorder from the
AAKER WHSHT Event 1960s, I can hear the difference between
INDLOSS Sunday April 7 the analog and digital eras. In many re-
RISLEY
spects, there are close connections be-
ARKE 8pm. 8/- tween working with analog tape and
OCKLEY digital software tools. In part, this is due
OWNIE to the fact that many software tools, as
DRAUGHT well as the architecture of some pro-
ART gramming and processing environments,
UTTNER are based on analog models. There are
also differences, however, and these are
ACEY
ATHAM notjust differences between an actual ra-
LEGGATT zor blade and cutting block and the
McKEOWN
graphic click-and-edit icon on a com-
puter desktop.
PAYNE
I am acutely aware that my analysis of
REEDY Middle Earth these differences is primarily intuitive, to
SOUTHGATE 43, King St. W.C. 2. some extent a question of poetics. The
WHITE tapes are dirty, overloaded and distorted,
YOU the product of that deliberate or inad-

32 Toop, Sound Body

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vertent misuse of machines that evolved
from the creative abuse of duplicators in
the 1940s. The processing of the voice
seems to inhabit the same space as the vo-
calists (in the same way that a tractor, a
food processor or a printing machine all
inhabit the same space as their operator).
The physicality of the process is always ev-
ident: the vigorous switching of knobs,
the cutting into words with a razor, the
linear transport of tape, the extraneous
noise of tape hiss and machine hum.
Most important of all, the audio recorder
is freighted with history. Imagined ini-
tially as a passive medium, one of its ear-
liest functions was to document and

preserve the voice for posterity. So we can

now listen to historical recordings of Flo-

..a*-1 9'L'.tar,e,s~,sb:
rence Nightingale, Aleister Crowley, Ma-
hatma Gandhi or Booker T. Washington
and dwell in their presence. An aura of
authenticity surrounds tape, even when
it is actively processed almost beyond
recognition, as in the work of Cobbing
or Chopin.

:! a .~ ~ 1~ -, PI:^.: 1P ~8~ ~"-,`

In 1912, the Italian Futurist Marinetti 'r; dP~*

produced his "Technical Manifesto of Fu- ~' - I~PBb~R~kr~~~

"-n
r' i_
r-,
~I
~*" ~~-~
" 1P:.

e P~" : O
"'
i:Pa~ sr,,
turist Literature." "One must destroy syn- ,*
.i -

riE~~TI:,b.:,".9~~:.-'*' ~$ .1,*~
tax and scatter one's nouns at random, i h"4' ',1

:i i:siDI',ri";_'i-a.~Z,:-"iYr:l.E6'-~*~:"I4,-a~:d.^;aaI~'~3e`,~~6.ra'`Y,o)aL?
just as they are born," he wrote. "We want i .~ I
I)r*
-'
_;~~
e .1-

to make literature out of the life of a mo- P

r' i

*~PIIPL%~PB~~ ~. ill

tor, a new instinctive animal whose gen- .. e;-,p:

Zr. ~r-. :
eral instincts we will know when we have
.a ~g~rgl
learned the instincts of the different a

.. -

forces that make it up" [23]. From this

i l i : q, : "x: ,:
remove, we can sidestep Marinetti's mil-
itaristic braggadocio and hyperbole and :~I: a, '~
~

r; r~

perceive an underlying sincerity, an t* .:~ ..ii ..

.. .9 ..;)
6

almost desperate desire to subject lan- .~.

guage, speech and the word to the dra-

matically new conditions enforced by the
Fig. 5. John Latham, Noit, 1-second drawing, spray paint on paper, 14 April 1975.
machine age.
( John Latham)
A similar desire exists today. How does
the voice survive in the digital 21st cen-
tury, in a period when voices can be dig-
itally synthesized with a convincing
by the prominence of unintentional vo- formance evening called Float (Fig. 4),
cal sounds in hithe
degree of humanness and when s spe ch. Latham had held at a psychedelic club called Middle
recording machine is no longer beaen sufferindedi-
g from problems with his Earth in London's Covent Garden. Float

throat, and during a discus ion in which

cated technology but a complex process- also featured performances by such
he elaborated his theory of event sta
ing device that can rapidly generate artists as Stuart Brisley, Bruce Lacey and
ruc-
huge quantity and variety of sonicture andmate-
the place on a time-base spec-
Carlyle Reedy, but I was most impressed
trum of what he describes as "the body
rial from a single vocal syllable without by Latham's contribution. He was cutting
demanding physical effort? Stephenevent" in its various manifestations, up books with the kind of floor-mounted
Hawking "appears" in a cameo role on the unimaginable time base of electric
within the saw used by timber merchants.
universe, these tiny clicks seemed toAs
"The Simpsons," and in that convergence actif the noise from this activity were
not brutal enough, the body of the saw
as a symbol of human capacity to func-
of synthesized speech, animated inven-
tion and real human existence, we have was amplified through a contact micro-
tion simultaneously at varying yet closely
phone. I enjoyed the noise attack so
connected points on this spectrum [25].
some sort of encapsulation of the height-
They
ened contrast between corporeality much that I picked up one of the book
andalso served as a reminder that
the body is the primary improvising fragments
virtuality that distinguishes our time. in- from the floor and took it
In the latter half of 2004, I produced a
strument. home. Reading through this sundered
sound work for computer and voice Myinfirst experience of Latham's volume in a conventional manner gen-
work
erated
was in 1968 (a calculated guess,
collaboration with artist John Latham fantastic
since no imagery automatically.
[24]. After recording a conversation reliable
withdocumentation seems to exist), The book was a romantic novel, written
Latham in October 2004, I was struck when I was in the audience for a per- in florid style, and so nonsensical lines of

Toop, Sound Body 33

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overheated, exotic poetry flowed from its
pages. These broken texts became songs
in some cases, and I read long passages
from them into a cassette tape recorder,
using a flat voice that gave no acknowl-
Robert Rauschenberg's white canvases The Body Event, as I named the piece,
(1951) or Latham's own expositions was
of created by exporting the Latham in-
least event, his spray paintings, or Noit
terview into two computers, a PC and a
(Fig. 5), 1-second drawings that dated
Mac, then editing the spoken "text" into
from the mid-1950s through the mid- workable and relevant sections. I then

edgment to the consistent ruptures of
syntax and meaning.
This was the beginning of something
for me. I think that by that time I had
read Nova Express by William Burroughs
1970s. There seemed to me to be some processed the text sections using a vari-
connection between the spray gun ety and of software programs: Logic Audio
its instant mark and the new possibili-
version 5 and Logic Pro 6, DSP-Quattro,
ties of precise editing and granulation
Max/MSP granular patch, Ableton Live
available through computer audio soft-and the Akira Rabelais audio software cu-

[26], and I was getting to know some-
thing about cut-ups and concrete poetry.
There was a context, then, but I had dis-
covered a way to write, as well as a way to
speak and sing (and new subjects to speak
and sing about). Difficult as they were,
Latham's ideas began to intrigue me: Mu-
sicians find the notion of a world based
on time-base and event, rather than ob-
ware [31]. rio Argeiphontes Lyre. By this method,
At the same time, I had been strug- it was possible to reduce the voice to a
least event, to expand a least event to a
gling with music's limitation as a medium
that can only communicate by articulat-
continuous (and by implication infinite)
sound
ing time. The stillness of ajar, evoked by and to re-order the hierarchy of
T.S. Eliot in The Four Quartets and bymeaning
Vir- by giving equal prominence to
ginia Woolf in Between the Acts, seems paralinguistic
only sounds, environmental
possible in music through metaphors
sounds, individual words or particles of
such as static form, as in Brian Eno's words and Latham's verbal articulation

ject relations, quite easy to assimilate, drone works that consciously aspire toof complete ideas such as "spray gun,"
since time and immateriality form the the qualities of painting or the radi- "least event" or "body event." Since the
piece was designed for a three-point
foundation of their practice. I would cally sparse playing exemplified by the re-
describe him as another mentor, like cent music of Taku Sugimoto and Radu loudspeaker set-up in which the sources
Cobbing, and there were connections Malfatti. of sound would be made as difficult as

between the two artists. Cobbing wasAgain, Latham provided me with food possible to locate, I divided up the piece
an organizer of events in which Latham for thought. As John A. Walker hasinto many cells and then split these into
written:
took part, and his tape sound poetry had three main groups, so that the voice and
been incorporated into at least one of its traces would appear to be extruded
A key characteristic of spray-gun painting
Latham's performance installations ofwas the fact that it was a direct result of through the entirety of the gallery in the
the 1960s. From both artists, there was the process of production employed.... same way that Latham extrudes books
the same attraction for me as Marinetti's A painting or sculpture was the conse- through glass [33].
destroyed syntax and scattered nouns, quence of a temporal making process but Does this threaten to return us to the
it was also, in Latham's view, atemporal in
even though their intentions and meth- fragmentation that I discussed at the be-
that its whole display was available to be
apprehended by the viewer and re- ginning of this essay, a fragmentation of
ods were radically different. In 1975 and
again in 1991, Latham used one of my mained omnipresent while the image was the early 20th century that emerged out
being examined. Hence, Latham rea-of disembodying technology, disturbingly
recorded pieces, The Chair's Story (1975)
soned, a defacto atemporality could be
[27], for his public performances of The unfamiliar theories of physics and psy-
expressed via visual but non-figurative
Government of theFirst and Thirteenth Chair, chology and profound changes within
paintings because they "deactivate pass-
which used human actors and chairs to the social body? I would argue that The
ing time and motion," whereas this was
illustrate the principle of the time-base Body Event depicts a quite different body,
not possible in language because speak-
ingThe
spectrum [28]. Ironically, the lyrics of or reading a linear sequence of words
not so much fragmented as a conglom-
"necessarily activates passing time." He erate of events that can be reconciled in
Chair's Story had been written accord-
concluded that the newly defined, dou- a world not obsessed with materialism
ing to the method inspired by Latham's ble character of visual art-exemplifying
sawed-up books [29]. temporal/atemporal-gave it a uniqueand object relations. "The problem of
Meeting Latham again, in summer advantage over language and literature representing the object seems less enig-
2004, I felt a compulsion to record an when
in-describing "the whole as an indi- matic than that of representing the or-
visible event," an event that is both spirit
terview exploring his theories. At the
and matter, mind and body [32].
ganism," writes Antonio Damasio in The
time of this interview, he was preparing Feeling of What Happens [34]. For Dama-
a new exhibition for the Lisson Gallery Latham's theories and artworks focus sio, stability is a fundamental require-
in London, and he showed me newon problems in the way in which
sculp- mentwe for our proper functioning. "Life
tural works made from thick glass andCertainly, a sense of wholeness
think. needs
for a boundary," he writes [35]. The
books. We discussed the condition of "the body event" is not possible ifnew we challenge to the permeability of that
transparency and evanescence common think in terms of object relations, boundary since is life in virtuality, human in-
to both glass and sound. Later, after lis- of the body event, includingtersection
so much the with the digital domain, in
tening to my minidisc recordingvoice, of our is evanescent, immaterial and which the body is made to feel increas-
conversation, I suggested creating a col-
frankly mysterious. This returns me to myingly less important. New confrontations
laborative installation derived entirely
1970s fascination with depictions of the between the voice and computer will in-
from his speech, vocal sounds, extra-human,
pauses, in which specialist tech-evitably rise to this challenge.
breathing, moments when he banged nologies
the and techniques were invented
table for emphasis, room sound and in order
am-to sound out a model of the body References and Notes
bient sounds from the street. (and world) that encompasses all these 1. The abAna trio was formed by Bob Cobbing, per-
Latham spoke about the "least event"
intangible qualities. As a post-Freudian, cussionist Paul Burwell and myself at the beginning
drawn to the sacred without being in anyof the 1970s. Burwell and I had been performing to-
[30] as a prerequisite for understanding
gether in an improvising duo called Rain in the Face
key statements of minimalism in 20th-way religious or mystical, I gave it that in-
(see Leonardo Music Journal 11, and its companion
terpretation.
century art, such as Cage's 4'33" (1952), CD). The aim of the abAna trio was to interpret Cob-

34 Toop, Sound Body

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bing's visual poems through improvisation, as if they "The Howler Monkeys/The Rain/The Willing Vessel, " all Events," first published in the catalogue State of Mind:
were graphic scores. At times abAna expanded into published in Pieces, No. 3, Michael Byron, ed. (On-John Latham (Dilsseldorf, Germany: Stadische Kunst-
a sextet, with the addition of pianist (now music the- tario, 1977) pp. 67-73. halle, 1975).
orist) Christopher Small, alto saxophonist Herman
Hauge and vocalist Lynn Conetta. A 1973 abAna trio 16. Albert Mayr, Suono Ambiente, Ants CD Ant03cdr 31. Though beyond the scope of this essay, develop-
recording of TheJudith Poem by Cobbing can be heard (2001). ments in microsound advanced by digital composer
on the companion CD that I compiled for LMJ 11. Curtis Roads are particularly relevant to this area of
17. Christian Wolff, "Stones," included in Prose Pieces:
See also Bob Cobbing, "abAna: The Judith Poem," research, notably his Point, Line, Cloud formulation
Christian Wolff (London: Experimental Music Cata-(compare the discussion of acoustic quanta in Cur-
LMJ11 CD Contributor's Note, Leonardo MusicJour-
logue, 1974) p. 14. Recorded: Christian Wolff, Stones, tis Roads, Microsound [Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
nal 11 (2001). See <lmj.mit.edu/lmjll.html> for
Edition Wandelweiser Records EWR 9604 (1996).
more information and notes on the CD. 2001] with John A. Walker's references to Latham's
18. Christian Wolff, "New and Electronic Music," Au- quantum-of-mark). Differences are apparent in that
2. At some point in the 1960s, Cobbing found dis-
dience 5, No. 3 (1958).
the spray-gun burst is an instant fix of tiny marks on
carded sheets of Letraset type in a dustbin (launched paper, whereas digital sound is malleable over a po-
in 1960 and aimed at graphic designers, Letraset was
19. Cornelius Cardew, The Great Learning, Deutsche tentially infinite time base. Nevertheless, the notion
a dry-transfer method of applying letteringGrammophon
in a va- LP (1971). of cloud formations of sound particles, and the at-
riety of typefaces). These sheets were cracked, and omiLation of "mark" or grain, both central to certain
20. Lawrence
by using the broken letters, he created images that Casserley, "Plus (a change:Journeys, In- areas of current computer music, suggest some sim-
struments and Networks, 1966-2000," Leonardo Mu-ilarity of approach, while simultaneously highlight-
broke down the word itself. This was a development
sicJournal
from his experiments with duplicating machines and 11 (2001) pp. 43-49. ing the temporal distinctions between painting and
other forms of printing and copying devices. As a music.
21.
conscientious objector during World War II, he hadSee Hugh Davies, "Gentle Fire: An Early Ap-
worked in a hospital as a clerk. During this proach to Live Electronic Music," Leonardo Music
period 32. Walker [27] p. 24.
Journal
(1939-1942), he discovered a Roneo duplicating ma-11 (2001) pp. 53-60; see also Davies's LMJII
CD Contributor's Notes, "Daphne Gram: Four As- 33. The Body Event, exhibited in John Latham's God
chine in the hospital storeroom. Playing with the cre-
pects, Is Great and Belief Systems as Such, Lisson New
ative possibilities of the Roneo led him to his" "Music for Three Springs," and "Gentle Fire:
Space, London, 21 January-5 March 2005. A num-
Group Composition IV(Unfixed Parities), "Leonardo Mu-
breakthrough into visual poetry.
sicJournal 11 (2001). ber of sculptures in the exhibition consisted of books
cut in half and fixed on either side of sheets of glass.
3. Bob Cobbing, ABC in Sound (London: Writers Fo-
rum, 1971). 22. Bob Cobbing exhibition, Text Festival, Bury Art This gave the impression that the books were pass-
Gallery, Lancashire, U.K., 19 March-22 May 2005. ing through the glass.
4. Bob Cobbing, interview with the author, 11 Octo-
23. F.T. Marinetti, "Technical Manifesto of Futurist 34. Antonio Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens
ber 2000.
Literature," published in R.W. Flint, ed., Marinetti:(London: Vintage, 2000) p. 133.
Selected
5. Eric Mottram, "Composition and Performance in Writings (London: Secker & Warburg, 1972)
pp. 84-87. 35. Damasio [34] p. 137.
the Work of Bob Cobbing: A Conversation," in
Michael Gibbs, ed., Kontextsound, exh. cat. (Amster- 36. Bob Cobbing, "TheJudith Poem, Landscape Vari-
24.John Latham was born in 1921. Based in London
dam: Kontexts Publications, 1977) p. 15. ation," Second Aeon, Nos. 16/17 (1972).
since 1946, he has become notorious as a visionary
6. Mottram [5] p. 17. if problematic artist whose work has been either de-
37. Bob Cobbing, "The Judith Poem," in Bob Cob-
structive (e.g. his book burning of the 1960s), socially
bing, TheJudith Poem (London: Writers Forum, 1971).
7. David Toop, "Language and Paralanguage of confrontational
the (through projects carried out under
Sacred," Kroklok, No. 4, 98-102 (1974). the auspices of the Artist Placement Group) or the- 38. David Toop, "Wasp Flute," in Toop [14].
oretically difficult (see all of the work since the 1960s
8. Kenneth Harrison, "Vitruvius and AcousticJars that
in concerns event structure, art and physics, and 39. David Toop, "The Howler Monkeys/The Rain/The
England during the Middle Ages," Transactions ofthe
theconcepts of least event and time-base spectrum). Willing Vessel, "in Toop [15].
Ancient Monuments Society (London: 1968) pp. 49-58.
25. ForJohn Latham, the root of many problems de-
9. Henry Balfour, "Ritual and Secular Uses ofrives Vi- from verbal conventions and "common sense" Manuscript received 1 January 2005.
brating Membranes as Voice-Disguisers," Royal An- perceptions that understand and describe the world
thropological InstituteJournal, London LXXVIII (1948)
primarily as a tangible, visible, material entity. His
pp. 45-69. David Toop is currently an Arts & Human-
rephrasing of the world as a time- and event-based
ities Research Council Research Fellow in the
phenomenon leads him to describe the human in-
10. Balfour [9] p. 53. dividual as a body event that encompasses birth Creative
to and Performing Arts and Visiting
death, genetic history and the future that transpires
Professor at the University of the Arts London.
11. See, for example, Marianna Torgovnick, Gone
through the effects of each individual.
Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives (Chicago and Active since the early 1970s as a musician,
London: University of Chicago Press, 1990); 26. and William Burroughs, Nova Express (London:
author;
Pan- critic and sound curator, he has pub-
Kenneth Coutts-Smith, "Some General Observations ther, 1968).
on the Problem of Cultural Colonialism," in Susan
lished four books: Rap Attack (first published
27. John A. Walker, John Latham: The Incidental
Hiller, ed., The Myth ofPrimitivism (London and New in 1984,
Per- now in its third edition), Ocean
York: Routledge, 1991) pp. 14-31. son-His Art and Ideas (London: Middlesex Univ. Of Sound (1995), Exotica (1999, a winner
Press, 1995) pp. 134-137. of the Before Columbus Foundation American
12. Bionics, the science of systems whose function is
based on living systems, was fashionable in the early28. The time-base spectrum, expressed by Latham Book Award 2000), and Haunted Weather
1970s, though the term was coined in 1958. Carica- through diagrammatic means and devices such (2004).
as He has written for many publications,
tured in the 1973 television series "The Six Million the roller paintings invented during the 1960s, isincludingThe
a Wire, The Face, The Times,
Dollar Man" and its successor "The Bionic Woman," scale that denotes at one extreme the most minimal
The New York Times, Urb and Book-
event possible to describe through physics and at the
bionics suggested ways in which engineers, biologists
and other scientists could exploit natural systems.other
I extreme the maximum event possibleforum.to de- In 2000, he curated Sonic Boom, the
was inspired to borrow the term through my own in- scribe through cosmology. U.K. 's biggest exhibition of sound art, for the
terest in the influence of bioacoustics, animal move- Hayward Gallery in London, and in 2001 he
ment and other living systems on musical sound, 29. David Toop, The Chair's Story, released curated
on New
soundforRadical Fashion at the Vic-
and Rediscovered Musical Instruments, Obscure 4
structure and technology.
(1975). toria & Albert Museum. His first album was
13. David Toop, Ocean of Sound (London: Serpent's released on Brian Eno's Obscure label in 1975,
Tail, 1995). 30. Through either sculpture or textual arguments,
and since 1995 he has released seven solo CDs.
John Latham proposes that particle and mass are not
14. David Toop, "Wasp Flute," in David Toop, ed.,minimal with respect to duration, so to establish At aLisbon Expo '98 he composed the music for
New/Rediscovered Musical Instruments, Vol. 1 (London:structural frame through which to understand time,
the nightly spectacular Acqua Matrix, and
the notion of a least event must be defined. In
Quartz/Mirliton, 1974) p. 24. in 2002 his composition Siren Space was
1972-1973, he described this as: "An occurrence of
15. David Toop, "The Willing Vessel/The Radiant Sur- not-nothing on a state of nothing, for a least instant." performed on the Thames at the close of the
face," "The Underwater Stridulators/A Willing Vessel,"John Latham, "Time-Base and Determination in Thames Festival.

Toop, Sound Body 35

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