IKLECTIK presents,
JON WOZENCROFT SOUND SEMINAR: The Uncertainty Principle
Thursday 13 January 2022 | 7:30pm [7pm doors] – Open till late!
Tickets: £6 General Admission https://buytickets.at/iklectik/621674
“Uncertainty has become a dominant emotion in these Covid–Brexit times, to an extent that it can be paralysing – nothing seems to change, everybody (well, everybody with an instinct to take care of themselves and their surroundings) is on their guard, and there is a thin line between uncertainty and basic fear. And fear, as venal politicians exploit on a daily basis, is a tried and tested recipe for suffocating change.
However, seen through the prism of sound and music, uncertainty is an essential element for growth and development, the catalyst of the unexpected. Obviously, improvised music could not exist without such a precondition, but in more general terms the life of every artist and musician who seeks to create something
new, has to walk the line between the familiar and the unforeseen.
Werner Heisenberg established ‘The Uncertainty Principle’ in Copenhagen in the 1920s, in essence, proving that it is impossible to determine accurately both the position and the speed of a particle at the same instant. The discovery was significant because it proved that uncertainty was a fundamental property of quantum mechanics, thereby superseding the so-called ‘observer effect’ which had previously explained why measurements could not be made without affecting and changing the system that was under scientific observation.
“There are some things in nature that we can’t know”
–https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-uncertainty-principle-definition-consequences-examples.html
The distance between a composition, its recording and its distribution… The perils of the manufacturing process… How will the audience react? Will the music hold up over time? Such things can never be known for sure and it can work both ways. Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook both hated Joy Division’s debut LP “Unknown Pleasures” when they first heard it, but four decades later it’s a different story.
So the first sound seminar of 2022 is not about science, but the ways and means by which this scientific paradigm, developed 100 years ago by Heisenberg, has come to characterise everyday communications and perception, and how we can embrace it as a vital element of a brighter future, by learning better how to take
risks.
Jon Wozencroft developed his sound seminars in the late 1980s as a means of highlighting the potential of sound-related research and practice in art and design education. Primarily, the seminars promote the art of listening and seek to rebalance the dominant bias of visual culture which favours the eye over the ear. Listening both enhances one’s perceptual awareness and creates an oasis away from 24/7 non-stop media. The seminars underline the power of sound and music as catalysts for change in a context in which recorded music has been progressively devalued in the digital environment. Drawing upon forty years of working in music publishing and performance, Wozencroft moves the audience between and beyond genre classifications and makes connections where past present and future come alive in the moment.
“Sound system powered by AMOENUS. AMOENUS is an art organisation that facilitates, educated, curates and promotes immersive art centred around 3D sound”
https://amoenus.co.uk
