Maryanne Amacher: Ways of Hearing workshop
Holy Apostles and The Mediator
Philadelphia, PA 19139
This program is presented with Bowerbird as part of Maryanne Amacher: Perceptual Geographies in Philadelphia between Tuesday, April 9th and Sunday, April 13th.
Today media exist which begin to mirror the sensitive range of our perceptual modes. As technologies develop to enhance the range and subtlety of our responsive energies, will the auditory arts do likewise? Will sound art explore emergent technologies to delve consciously into these expanded sensitivities? And in what ways? Taking VR (Virtual Reality 3D sonic imaging and graphics, telepresence, and cyberspace) as a point of departure, this workshop examines possibilities of individualizing sonic architectures for listeners and for spaces – an approach to composition as “perceptual geography.”
—Excerpted from Maryanne Amacher’s “MUS 352B Workshop in Electronic, Electroacoustic and Computer Music Composition” course listing at Bard College.
In 2012 a group of Maryanne Amacher’s former collaborators took up the late artist's baton, joining forces to collectively engage with the questions of the posthumous life of their friend’s site-adaptive work. Under the name Supreme Connections (the top secret sound lab featured in Amacher’s unrealised treatment, Intelligent Life), the loose formation developed a model for realizing Amacher’s radical approach in keeping with its complex conception of “the work.” This iteration of Supreme Connections is comprised of Bill Dietz, Sergei Tcherepnin, Keiko Prince, Woody Sullender, Nora Schutz, and Amy Cimini.
Ways of Hearing is a multi-part workshop led by Supreme Connections that explores the complexity and nuance of Maryanne Amacher’s artistic practice and her idea of “perceptual geography” as an approach to composition. These events will include in depth listening and discussion of archival audio, and the presentation of unpublished images of scores, notes, and texts selected from the Maryanne Amacher Archive. The workshop is open to all, but overall group size is limited. Advanced registration is strongly encouraged.
This program runs from 1pm to 5pm. Breaks and light refreshments will be provided.
Maryanne Amacher (1938-2009) was a composer of large-scale fixed-duration sound installations and a highly original thinker in the areas of perception, sound spatialization, creative intelligence, and aural architecture. She is frequently cited as a pioneer of what has come to be called sound art, although her thought and creative practice consistently challenges key assumptions about the capacities and limitations of this nascent genre. Often considered to be part of a post-Cagean lineage, her work anticipates some of the most important developments in network culture, media arts, acoustic ecology, and sound studies.
Holy Apostles and The Mediator is not wheelchair accessible. Please write at least three days before the event and we will make every effort to accommodate you.
Presented with Bowerbird.
Major support for MARYANNE AMACHER: PERCEPTUAL GEOGRAPHIES has been provided to Bowerbird by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, with additional support from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.
