Seminar on Properties of Sound

Ever since Bulegoa zenbaki barik opened in November 2010, we’ve been compiling a photographic and sound record of our public activities. We conceive the sound archive we’ve built up over the past four years not only as a mere record of what has taken place, but as a central element for our office, one of whose aims is to further the production of knowledge beyond the time frame of the public activities in our programme. This seminar intends to discuss how to manage Bulegoa z/b’s sound archive and make it publicly accessible, which is a question we have yet to answer. We also want to make the most of the occasion to open up the discussion towards sound as a specific art medium. In order to do so, we’ve invited people who work with digital sound archives, and others who use sound within their work and would like to consider how to manage common assets and make knowledge available to the public.

The seminar, which will consist of four presentations, a concert, and a listening session followed by discussion, will take place from 10.00 to 13.30. Live video streaming at TV-tron (http://www.tea-tron.com/teatron/TVTRON.do)

To take part in the seminar, please write to bulegoa@bulegoa.org

PROGRAMME:
10.00-10.20: Presentation by Bulegoa z/b.
10.20-11.00: Ainara LeGardón. Concert improvisation and presentation.
11.00-11.20: Nicolas Malevé.
11.20-11.50: Oier Iruretagoiena. Presentation and listening session.
11.50-12.10: Rubén Ramos Nogueira.
12.10-12.30: Presentation and listening session of Bulegoa z/b sound material.
12.30-13.30: Discussion.

“Authorship, protection and management – of what?” Ainara LeGardon
The Law on Intellectual Property claims that the maker of a work has certain moral rights which are unalienable and cannot be given up. These rights are based on the intimate, inseparable connection between the author and his or her creation. One of them is that the fathership of the work be recognised. But do all makers of works feel ourselves to be the fathers or mothers of what we do? Do our pieces ‘belong’ to us? The praxis of free improvisation, creating in real time, poses a conflict for certain artists with regard to the idea of authorship as it is normally considered. I propose to analyse my concerns around the idea of intellectual property, the protection of work and copyright management.

“The Whispering Archive”. Nicolas Malevé
When archiving sound, one regularly encounters a key element: the voice. What happens to the voice when it enters the digital realm? How does the speaker speaks when she knows what she says will be archived? When she agrees her words can be shared? And transformed? And what happens when the code itself “speaks”? The presentation will try to address (not answer to) these questions by looking at (and listening to) different archive projects that inspired the collaborators of Constant or that we developed ourselves.

“A Sound Crushed”. Oier Iruretagoiena
Notes on some previous works and listening session.

“Archiving Isn’t So Bad but I Could Think of Funner Things to Do”. Rubén Ramos Nogueira
When Teatron was just a project, some time around 2006, we once found ourselves thinking about all the different kinds of video (and sound) recordings that were lying dormant in boxes that maybe nobody ever opened. As we observed the functioning of some of the pioneer digital archives, recently born video and audio streaming platforms were sprouting frenetically, while social networks were changing aspects of our daily lives forever. If we’d ever thought that it might be fundamental to think about how to organise an archive, events have turned this into a secondary issue. Although, now that you ask, we’re still thinking about it.

BIOS
Oier Iruretagoiena (Errenteria, 1988) is an artist based in Bilbao. His work moves between sculpture, sound and text. He finished a Degree in Fine Art with the UPV-EHU en 2011. He has held solo exhibitions at Halfhouse, Barcelona (2014), Casa de Cultura, Egia, Donostia-San Sebastián (2013) and Centro Cultural Montehermoso, Vitoria-Gasteiz (2011). His work has also been presented at Festival Ertz for other music (2014), Cicle HUM, and L’ull cec, Barcelona (2010). He has worked on soundtracks for dance, theatre, radio and audiovisual pieces, and is also one of the coordinators of Club Le Larriskito, Bilbao.

Ainara LeGardon (Bilbao, 1976). Performer, guitarist, singer and composer. She has been making music for over twenty years. Her five solo albums have been praised by the specialised press and are considered to be references in the independent Spanish scene. She studied Intellectual Property at the Instituto Superior de Arte and is an activist for DIY philosophy, who combines workshops and talks on cultural self-management with her own personal music project, making soundtracks, and improvisation. Her academic work “Otro modelo es posible” has just been published and is an analysis of copyright management and how this enters into conflict with the use of free licences.

Nicolas Malevé (Brussels, 1969) is an artist, software programmer and data activist. His current research work is focused on cartography, information structures, metadata and the means to visually represent them. Since 1998, Nicolas has been an active member of Constant (www.constantvzw.org), an interdisciplinary arts-lab which focuses on the culture and ethics of the World Wide Web. Nicolas lives and works in Barcelona and Brussels.

Rubén Ramos Nogueira (Santa Coloma de Gramenet, 1973). I am one of the founders of Teatron (http://www.tea-tron.com), a digital media project focused on what we now call live art. This is why I’ve been invited to Bulegoa z/b. Aside from that, I’ve been called all kinds of things recently: cultural agitator, writer, journalist, musician, performer, computer programmer, IT specialist, artist, technician, basketball player, and performing arts critic, which, of all of names, is the only one I won’t allow. The others I’d admit to, though maybe not in the same terms. (http://www.fuga.es)