Kevin Logan

Why Im High-Definition and Lossless

(Or, doing / hearing embodied pedagogy)

The title for this short piece of writing is intended as a provocation of sorts, a
critical slight underscoring what I consider problematic within current sound
studies and sonic art, in particular where these intersect research practice and
pedagogic procedures.
What might at first glance appear to be a title championing the authenticity of
presence over technological mediation is in actual fact a playful misuse of
digital media terminology. I appropriate this geekspeak to introduce a
particular concept, one that analogizes audio compression rates as modes of
performativity.
In this writing I would like draw from my practice-led research, at the core of
which is the examination of contested definitions of liveness. These often
adversarial definitions are critically engaged in the doing of sonic-event(s).
The sonic-event here refers to a sound producing somatic act, a physical
cause and effect with audial outcome. My research is both situated in, and
motivated by recent developments in theories of performativity and
performance. My practice considers the critical and operational imperative of
these two p words in the lexicon of contemporary sound art.

A primary objective of my research is to investigate whether performance, as

an art practice, and sound share a common ontology in foregrounding their
experiential nature. This second p word performativity, refers to a crossdisciplinary turn that addresses questions of agency by employing an analytic
originally developed by the linguist J.L Austin in his work on speech act theory.

In this context, I will reflect upon my recent consideration of the act of

presenting as not merely a way of disseminating sound studies research in
general and my own my own work in particular, but a form of mediated
practice per se. My practice uses the sonic as a device within performancebased work(s). These works exist Janus like, being in turn a performative
interrogation of sonority.
The motivation behind my audio-codec analogy came about whilst attending
one of many sound arts related conferences in 2014. During this conference,
which will remain anonymous, I found myself considering the style and
singularity of each paper, as much as its content, both the format and the
manner of staging brought into play by each individual presenter 1. The
papers ranged from solid chunks of theory unaccompanied by visual
elaboration or sonic embellishment, to those that not only engaged with the
audience, but with the possibilities of the theatrical as a pedagogical tool.
While I sat passively for hours in a lecture theatre I began to consider the
crossover between the curatorial possibilities of sound art, and my personal
thoughts on how as a research student, I situate my practice within a
necessity, to disseminate. A circulating and sharing that happens both within
the academic sphere, symposium, conferences and so on, and the nonacademic, galleries and performance art venues, etc.
At some point in the course of the second day of this symposium a passing
reference was made to format theory and the writing of Jonathan Sterne, and
in one of those moments of woolgathering that facilitates unconnected
connections, I was led to a rather tentative parallel. Bearing in mind that a
1 An audio codec is a device or a computer program implementing an
algorithm of lossy or lossless compression in which the amount of data in a
recorded waveform is reduced to differing extents for transmission with or
without some loss of quality. No information is lost in lossless compression.

presentation is a process of information filtration, refinement or purification, I

began to consider audio compression rates as a useful analogy for modes of
research demonstration.
The original impetus which started with Jonathan Sternes, MP3: The
Meaning of a Format (2012) has now become a serviceable tool for modes of
doing, It re-examines the performative as it originates in the speech act
theory of philosopher and linguist J.L Austin. It also touches on the work of
theorist and artist Mieke Bal, in particular her consideration of cultural studies
and methodology.
I imagined a hypothetical line from left to right as a possible spectrum. If a
display of performative practice, where the recipient (in this case a
symposium audience) is asked to fill in the blanks and make their own
connections to critical discourse in the relevant field(s), is the equivalent to an
un-digitized analogue recording, then a densely theoretical monotonic
mumble is an 8 kilobits per second MP3. The later has an economy of data to
size ration, but sonically is of a lower quality. Using this yardstick, I ask
myself what proportion of theory to practice do I employ in the concoction that
is my research dissemination, where along this line do I situate myself?
The performative-presentation is a relatively recent turn within my research, it
is reflexive par excellence, and concerns performing and doing as both an
element of my practice and as a research methodology. I use the term
performative-presentation to identify a particular type of real-time live activity,
which is reliant on audience reception for its realisation. This practice differs
from what is usually considered to be performance or performance art, in that
it has a bias towards modes of knowledge sharing. In the performativepresentation individual events or gestures are combined to create something
that pastiches a themed lecture, transcending its individual elements to
produce a multi-act performance.

Inherent in the performative-presentation is an endeavour to extend the

understanding of a particular subject. Whereas, performance as it happens in
a fine art context, can, and often does lend itself to an expressive dramatic
form open to broad interpretation. The performative-presentation on the other
hand, as I use the term here, should engage epistemologically, whether this
be through pastiche or elucidation proper. It does not demand the strict
confines of academia or formal tutelage, but should always be framed within a
broad context of learning. It is for this reason that the statement doing
embodied pedagogy is the main clause in my subtitle.
Can embodied thinking in the delivery of my sound art practice and related
research combine form and content seamlessly whilst emphasizing the
fracture between the two? How can traditional boundaries between critical
and scholarly writing on the one hand, and creative practice on the other be
blurred? This development in my methodology interrogates what research
writing can do-off-the-page.
My preferred mode of research dissemination is now very much predisposed
towards practice and its analogue extreme. In the parlance of this audio
compression analogy, I am lossless. If performance is doing its own kind of
thinking then my chosen codec prejudices high-fidelity at the expense of
information bandwidth.
My analogizing of compression formats with modes of knowledge sharing,
might seem to discriminate practice over theory, however I would like to be
clear that this elected comparison is intended to act more as a devils
advocate than an argument proper. Although somewhat flippant and tongue in
cheek, this recourse to a technique that takes advantage of a perceptual
limitation of human hearing, has become a useful tool in the examination of
my doing and disseminating research.

To further expand upon my recent examination of the possibilities of

pedagogic form as research methodology, and my use of performativepresentation as a self-contained outcome, I would like to call upon Richard
Schechner one of the founders of Performance Studies. Schechner argues for
a broad-spectrum approach to performance, stating that performance must
be construed as a continuum of human action. He asserts that any action that
is framed, presented, highlighted, or displayed is performance, and that
performance can be defined as showing doing, pointing to, underlining, and
displaying doing, such that Performance Studies can be defined as
explaining-showing-doing (Schechner. 2002. p.2). It is a doing-showingsounding that is a basic principle of my compression rate analogy.

This incorporation of pedagogic practice as a doing-showing-sounding is an

undertaking to find within my research a more discoursal self, this in turn
involves the explication within the audience or colluder of an understanding of
how they themselves might come to consider the performances they give in
their everyday lives.

As previously mentioned, Mieke Bal has been an influential figure in crossdisciplinary theory. She posits that it is not convenient to treat performance (in
the theatrical sense) and performativity (creating a state of affairs by the very
fact of its being) separately, and that beyond the unique character of acting,
here and now, it is very important that both these terms relate to a complex
temporality. This is in direct opposition to the position taken in Dorothea von
Hantelmanns How To Do Things With Art: The Meaning of Arts
Performativity, in which she analyses contemporary artists through the filter of
Austins theories, asking what societal impact their work has on the world, and

how it produces reality. She remonstrates that the term performative, is

mostly used in a way that is a complete distortion from its original meaning
(and that it) is widely believed that performative can be understood as
performance-like, stating that she want(s) to restore the methodological
precision that the term seems to have lost with its popularity. (Hantelmann.
2010. p.17.)

In Travelling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide (2002), Bal

introduces her theory of the travelling concept, and further harnesses theories
of performativity. This theory according to Bal travels not just between
disciplines, places, and times, but also within its own conceptualization. She
also draws largely on her lecturing experience in terms of defining the need for
interdisciplinary discourse as well as proposing a defence of lecturing as a
relational activity.
It is this potential of a travelling exploration that I have applied in varying
degrees to my more recent performative-presentations. This reading of the
travelling concept as a mode of critical analysis is instrumental in
understanding why I consider a high-definition and lossless pedagogy to be a
necessity if sound studies is to progress past the merely descriptive.
It is in this respect that through interweaving narratives, playing the subjective
off against the objective, forcing alliances through juxtapositions, appropriation
and plunder (both phonic and textural), that a discursive narrative is
constructed. Whereas a bossy narrative might produce a clear and coherent
postulate, it is an amalgamation of acts, events, images, sounds and so on,
that

creates

space

for

doing.

To

paraphrase

the

philosopher

Jacques Rancire,

these

tangled

networks

may

intervene

in

the

reconfiguration of the sensible (Ranciere, 2004).

There are of course a vast number of performance lectures to use as
reference material for the evaluation of this practice, and they all sit along a
spectrum suggested by Mieke Bals analysis of narrative, from the overbearing to the modest. This spectrum can be superimposed onto the one my
own devising referred to earlier, which illustrates my rather fanciful audio
codec analogy.
Whereas at the other end of the spectrum there is the potential to critique and
create disquiet that is more reticent. A sideways shuffle that through a skilled
incompetence eloquently mumbles, this may cause the audience to attend
more closely as they strain to listen. For example in The Collapsing Lecture
Aaron Williamson gives a series of lectures whose hidden objective is to
subvert the usual pedagogic procedure. The premise of the The Collapsing
Lecture is that the delivery of formal lecturing and conferencing is fraught with
mishaps, equipment malfunctions etc. In his description of his failed lecture
performance, Williamson explains that one reason this work came about was
because he experienced some unease that, in fact, the theory of
performance art amounts to an argument precisely against the actions and
assumptions that fortify the conventional lecture (Williamson. 2010. p.55.)
Although perhaps not considered best practice for top-down pedagogy, I
believe that leaving the recipient to unsnarl, self-mediate and/or misconstrue,
to be a satisfactory outcome of my performance-lecture practice. This
application of travelling concepts is not an overzealous or excessive
application of theoretical research methodology. Rather it is the very core of
my research interest, that of the sonic-actant and contestations of liveness,

in all its existential glory and ontological uncertainty that have coerced me to
engage with performance and performativity.
The seeping through disciplinary boundaries of the term performance has led
it to be labelled as an antidiscipline (Carlson. 2003. p.188.), I however would
consider it an infra-disciplinary practice, and as such a perfect structure in
which to create works that compel an engagement with the sounding event.
My hybridized practice employs the speculative sonic-event as it travels,
seeking the flattest possible route across undulating disciplinary fields.

Performative-presentation practice is by its very nature a self-referential mode

of articulation and re-articulation. When the ventriloquist dummy says gottle
ogeer because bottle of beer is very difficult to say ventriloquially, it is
significant not just because failure or lack of virtuosity is comedic. It is
significant because it critically alludes to the illusion. It is a self-conscious
gesture that breaks the spell, even if the spell was never concretely cast. It is
in this respect that the failed / collapsed or performance lecture is a tool to
dismantle and reassemble pedagogy, implementing and doing-showingsounding new knowledge.

Austin, J.L., 1975. How to Do Things with Words, 2Rev e. edition. ed.
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Bal, M., 2002. Travelling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide.
University of Toronto Press.

Bal, M., 2009. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, 3

edition. ed. University of Toronto Press, Toronto.
Carlson, M., 2003. Performance: A Critical Introduction, 2 edition. ed.
Routledge, New York.
Hantelmann, D. von., 2010, How to Do Things with Art: The Meaning of
Arts Performativity, JRP / Ringier, Zrich.
Phelan, P., 1993. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. London,
Routledge.
Ranciere, J., 2009. Aesthetics and Its Discontents. Polity.

Schechner, R., 2004. Performance Theory. London, Routledge.

Sterne, J., 2012. MP3: The Meaning of a Format. Duke University Press,
Durham.
Williamson, A., 2010. In ed. Butt. G., Performing / Knowing, Volume One
of Art-Writing-Research, Article Press. Birmingham City University.