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Marc Matter, Andreas Bülhoff

ɅV – A Sound Writing Tool (LP)

Label: Research And Waves

Format: LP

Genre: Sound Art

Out of stock

ɅV (phonetic transcription for ‹of› or ‹off›) is a vinyl record consisting of spoken words, which can be used as a DJ-tool to compose artifical dialogues. It makes use of 32 monosyllabic words on each side recited by two synthetic voices which were collected from the website of the New York Times and the Politically Incorrect subforum of the messageboard 4chan, thus mirroring two opposing extremes of current online debate in the materiality of an LP. Mixing two copies of this record in a DJ-setup is recommended to generate unpredictable connections of meaning. To multiply the possibilities of meaning, this record contains ambiguous and homophonic words only, arranged in lists, text planes, rhythmic compositions and four locked-grooves on each side.

ɅV is at the same time a post-digital take on sound poetry as it is fueled by the current landscape of online debates and their ideologies. In its combinatorial filter bubble, looped words become a writing method that may produce fragmentary narratives or arbitrary mantras. This release is part of the collective curatorial practice of Research & Waves, activating the record in performances, workshops and lectures that will be documented at researchandwaves.net. The artwork, designed by Jan Klöthe, features all words in phonetic transcription as well as graphic scores of the 10 tracks. Andreas Bülhoff (sync zine, Library of Artistic Print on Demand) and Marc Matter (Institut für Feinmotorik, The Durian Brothers, Salon des Amateurs) first met for a collaborative sound poetry performance at Poesiefstival Berlin in 2018, resulting in an ongoing artistic resarch of which ɅV is its latest manifestation. 

Details
Cat. number: RAW[0.6,Y,0.75]
Year: 2021
A post-digital version of sound-poetry, with thirty-two monosyllabic words on each side | Read more

The Berlin label Research and Waves, an artistic project curated by Jasmina Al-Qaisi, Maria Karpushina, Gustavo Méndez Lopez, Norman Neumann and Henrik Nieratschker, released a twelve inch vinyl composed of words, a sort of manual for DJs, which can be used to create an artificial dialogue. ɅV (the phonetic transliteration for on/off) is for Andreas Bülhoff and Marc Matter, the creators of this very special work, a post-digital version of sound-poetry, with thirty-two monosyllabic words on each side. The words were collected during the winter 2018/19 from the website of the New York Times and from a subforum named Politically Incorrect. Two synthetic voices declaim the words and the platforms taken under consideration reflect the extreme opposites of the current online debate, on the edge between mainstream liberalism and reactionary subculture, formal and informal language, journalistic approach and chitchat. ɅV is also considered by the authors and the editorial collective as a starting point for Attune, the online platform of Research and Waves that explores and feeds sound processes and gestures, focusing on practices of remixing, sampling, cutting, mashing, quoting, covering, morphing and fading. This also activates an intercultural debate on several forms of oppression, from racism and white supremacy, through to patriarchy and neoliberalism. Can words be neutral? Clearly not, but a lot depends on what neutral is meant to be. Language is not something static; it is in continuous evolution and the language contexts the speakers and the writers employ are not neutral either. Language can also never be considered neutral from a political point of view, because the narration of what the reality seems to be is always changing and changes according to our perceptions and daily actions. What needs to be done at this point is to join the dots between words and their sources, the fragments of uneasy speech about the state of society, subject to viral assaults at the inner core of language.