Two laptops from the Spire event in the Petite Chapelle, Cathedral St. Pierre, Geneva.

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Where is electronic music today? Some would say it is everywhere, seeping between the cracks of a porous society that supposedly has no use for blips and beeps; "it all sounds the same" seems invalid now. This column will address shifts in the landscape of electronic music, in its permutations as dance music, artistic computer constructions, and reflections of the past. The "where" of electronic music presents a modern question of how digital compositions work in contemporary art today, how computer musicians are partnering with visual artists, dance choreographers and using field recordings in different contexts to bridge the gap between conceptual art and "new" music. Although the synthesis of installation work and environmental recordings is not a recent development by any means, technological strides and the sheer saturation of artists working together ratchets up the interplay between these forms. As with any art form presented on a semi-large scale, these productions can be costly, so financial issues are also a mitigating factor, whether determining the details of a project, or encouraging the work as a paying job by the artists. Examining this cross-pollination through some of its practitioners and recent projects, I hope to explore the current reverberations bouncing through electronic music culture and the art world.

By incorporating all aspects of a project into the musical or audio composition, i.e., the structure, be it minimal sound-scapes, constructions of samples or digital patchworks, the site itself is used as an input or source of reflection. These works play on the idea that works of electronic nature can aptly mirror their surroundings.

Since recorded sound was available to artists, the mixture of mediums fascinated. With the tape collage experiments of the Fifties and Sixties, sound poetry and visual art were conjoined. Bruce Nauman, an artist always fascinated with language in his work, recently turned heads with his "Raw Materials", an aural collage at the Tate Modern. Arranging "bands of sound" across the width of the museum's Turbine Hall, Nauman sets up a living space with audio representations of people, so that the digitally reproduced audio becomes sculpture itself. From Tate curator Emma Dexter's notes, "The Turbine Hall is filled with voices, some clearly audible, others indistinct, which merge with new, 'found' sound from the voices of visitors. In Raw Materials, Nauman has transformed this cavernous space into a metaphor for the world, echoing to the endless sound of jokes, poems, pleas, greetings, statements and propositions".

In site-specific works, location is everything. In the case of the recent Spire project, an ancient cathedral provided the backdrop, music and informed the compositions. Reinterpretations of classic organ music by performances of classical composers' work paralleled new digital reconstructions. The live event was held at St. Pierre Cathedral, Geneva, considered the crucible of the Reformation in 1534. The audience rotated between three separate venues within the cathedral area. Since the cathedral was the focal point of Jean Calvin's faith during the Reformation, spirituality is the common thread. The three distinct spaces provided individual contexts for the works. The main cathedral hall housed the actual organ works, with Charles Matthews and Marcus Davidson playing, via computer-controlled organ, five modern classical pieces in the pristine acoustic setting. In the second phase, BJ Nilsen and Philip Jeck performed on both organ and used manipulation. Nilsen's work was playing a duet by himself, between his electronics and the gigantic baffles of the organ for "Rues Basses". Jeck's appearance in the archeological site beneath the cathedral, appropriately called "The Crypt", shifted from the organ source to rock guitar samples, and cultural detritus from old records, in a way reflecting on the organ and traveling with it through time constructed by his various examples and inputs; a version of his own sonic archaeology. Christian Fennesz tied it together in the small Macchabees chapel, in a long-form passage of recombination, using the old and new sounds in a final statement of purpose within the stained-glassed walls of the giant cathedral.

Terre Thaemlitz works against the grain of most typical electronic music while retaining a deep love of its dance floor beginnings in disco and house music. His complex theories on music, transgender issues and critical theory, often included as texts with his recorded work, move with a searing sense of humor and wit. "Roller discos in the 70s were probably where I was first exposed to electronic music on a regular basis, although largely through disco with a bit of new wave crossover (Gary Numan, Devo...). Of course, rock was the dominant music, and within that I was drawn to groups like Styx (synth solo to "Come Sail Away", etc.). As I wrote about in "Replicas Rubato" (http://www.comatonse.com/writings/replicas.html), Gary Numan's "The Pleasure Principle" was the first record I ever bought". Even as a child, Thaemlitz "played" with how sound interacts with environment. "I started manipulating tapes during recording, by using weak batteries to record at a slow speed, which would result in fast playback with good batteries; or to only partially press the record button, causing the tape to start and stop, distorting the input signal... very basic, but there are somehow still parallels to how I produce music today. I played with this similarity of sound on "The Opposite of Genius or Chance" record I did for the EN/OF art-record label, including a recording I made at age 10 on one side, and a minimally altered digital "remix" on the other side".

When the source material is the earth itself, things can get really interesting. Jacob Kirkegaard is a sound artist working with geothermal recordings. His recent collection of field recordings, Eldfjall, captures sounds emitted around the area of Krisuvik, Geysir and Myvatn in Iceland. Kirkegaard uses accelerometers, vibration sensor microphones, to map the sounds of the geysers, producing rich layers of grumbling volcanic activity at the surface of the earth. "After using specific tools for capturing a sound, I naturally became more interested in its source, element and indeed also their space. Before, what I captured, was the sound from my immediate surroundings, something I desired to form and re-arrange, like when a poet picks up words and re-arranges them. Now I was all of a sudden able to explore gates to underworlds of sound, with the use of recording tools, enabling me to capture sound differently from the obvious acoustic way of hearing. I believe, that just because sound is invisible and abstract matter, it doesn´t necessarily lack space, movement or even the visual in it".

For many electronic musicians who integrate their work with site-specific work or collaborate with visual artists, their origins are in more traditional forms, like techno, breakbeats and dance-oriented genres. Thaemlitz's experience shows another angle. "In my case, it's rather the opposite. I started doing site-specific projects while still going to art college, then worked my way into DJ-ing (which is also a kind of site-specific performance, and that was in tranny clubs which also involved a kind of collaboration with drag queens, playing their show tunes, etc), and ultimately creating my own studio and working by myself. So, I guess DJ-ing was really the transition point". For Kirkegaard it was always about how to capture "that sound" in the best way possible. He adds, "It was the rich possibilities I found, when starting using electronic equipment for modulating the real sounds from my surroundings, which got me into this field. My first revelation into this world began when I heard a radio program on the pioneers of musique concrete, Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, which motivated me to capture and modulate the sounds that fascinated me. Experimenting with old broken 78 records versus samplers I found a world where these fluent, invisible and abstract audible airwaves from my surroundings suddenly became within reach".

Asked if there is a favorite project over the years, Thaemlitz responds with an act of art prankishness and subversion. "My favorite collaboration would still have to be John Consigli and my unauthorized installation of beeping devices under gallery benches at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. That was back in 1989. We didn't really consider it an audio project - it was more of a "guerilla art" tactic to make museum-goers more aware of the industrial sounds and institutional environment around them (emphasizing the gallery space over the artworks on the walls). It was really fun and secretive. The beepers were all eventually found, and removed when we looked for them a few weeks later".

The implications of some of the artist's works in this field are historic, as in the spelunking in the cathedral at the Spire event, or, as in Kirkegaard's case, approach the mythological. He elaborates, "The vibrating earth recordings are not only rich, but they also come right out of the cooking earth, like if it was the earth mother herself, breathing". Recreating this in another space, like his surround concert of the Eldfjall recordings can be a difficult goal. "I often present these earthly vibrations through multi-channel systems, in order to relocate this living event into another context and in this way enabling a new experience of sound".

A distinct reality for these projects is their appeal to artists as paying gigs, supporting the community of artists who cannot typically survive on the sales of their works. Thaemlitz adds, "These attempts are generally conditioned by budgets, whether the collaborators are actually able to physically work in the same space, whether that space is the actual final location, etc... I think it's really important not to get too starry-eyed about the heights of an art-form without also being pragmatic about the financial, political and social lows. I think one large factor for the sudden "interest in audio art" is the ongoing collapse of the commercial audio marketplace (such as the distributor EFA's closure, which forced many labels out of business, etc), which leaves a lot of producers like myself scattering for alternative income and taking it on like part-time work. A lot of musicians and artists don't like to talk about economics, but in the end, it's funding that drives this stuff, even if we're still talking about low-pay and even pro-bono work".