David Crowley, Daniel Muzyczuk (eds.): Sounding the Body Electric: Experiments in Art and Music in Eastern Europe 1957–1984 (2012) [English/Polish]

“In the aftermath of Stalinism, composers and artists in Eastern Europe were given new opportunities to experiment. New recording studios equipped with magnetic tape recorders and later, synthesizers were established, first in Warsaw in 1957 and then throughout Eastern Europe. New and often challenging forms of music were produced in these laboratories of sound.

The connections between the visual arts and experimental music were closer in the 1960s than perhaps any time before or since. Sound and image combined in artists’ films, ‘happenings’ and sounding installations. Experimental forms of notation were also created to stimulate uninhibited musical expression.

The early happenings and actions of the 1960s were associated with intellectual freedom and reform. The exhilaration of experimentation declined during the decade and in the 1970s new critical forms of art emerged which associated sound with surveillance and censorship.

This book accompanying an 2012 exhibition at the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź explores both the optimism and the anxiety that was to be found in the experimental zone of art and music.”

The exhibition later moved to the Calvert 22 Gallery in London.

Artists: Collective Actions, Walerian Borowczyk, Andrzej Dłużniewski, Szábolcs Esztényi, László Vidovszky, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Grzegorz Kowalski, Zygmunt Krauze, Henryk Morel and Cezary Szubartowski, Eugeniusz Rudnik, Bulat Galeyev, Milan Grygar, Milan Knížák, Oskar Hansen, Zofia Hansen, Zoltán Jeney, Vitaly Komar & Alexander Melamid, Katalin Ladik, Jan Lenica, Dóra Maurer, Vladan Radovanović, Józef Robakowski, Bogusław Schaeffer.

Dźwięki elektrycznego ciała: Eksperymenty w sztuce i muzyce w Europie Wschodniej 1957–1984
Publisher Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź, 2012
ISBN 9788387937980
222 pages

David Crowley’s presentation at MoMA (video, 50 min)
Sounding the Body Electric: A Conversation (Michał Libera, Art Margins)
Accompanying audio 2-CD

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PDF (exh. guide, Calvert 22 Gallery, London, 2013, added on 2023-12-27)

Andrey Smirnov: Sound in Z: Experiments in Sound and Electronic Music in Early 20th-century Russia (2013)

“Sound in Z supplies the astounding and long-lost chapter in the early story of electronic music: the Soviet experiment, a chapter that runs from 1917 to the late 1930s. Its heroes are Arseny Avraamov, inventor of Graphic Sound (drawing directly onto magnetic tape) and a 48-note scale; Alexei Gastev, who coined the term “bio-mechanics”; Leon Theremin, inventor of the world’s first electronic instrument, the Theremin; and others whose dreams for electronic sound were cut short by Stalin’s regime. Drawing on materials from numerous Moscow archives, this book reconstructs Avraamov’s Symphony of Sirens, an open-air performance for factory whistles, foghorns and artillery fire first staged in 1922, explores Graphic Sound and recounts Theremin’s extraordinary career-compiling the first full account of Russian electronic music.”

Edited by Matt Price and David Rogerson
Foreword by Jeremy Deller
Publisher Koenig Books, London, in partnership with Sound and Music, London, 2013
ISBN 3865607063, 9783865607065
281 pages

Talk by the author (audio, 90 min, 2012)
Interview with author: Nathan Budzinski (video, The Wire, 2013).

Exh. review: Daniele Balit (The Wire, 2009).
Reviews: Agata Pyzik (Calvert Journal, 2013), Colin McSwiggen (n+1, 2013), Alessandro Ludovico (Neural, 2013), Jacob Gotlib (Computer Music Journal, 2014), Thomas Patteson (Current Musicology, 2017).

Author
Publisher
WorldCat

PDF, PDF (14 MB, updated on 2020-11-1)

Nicola Anne Candlish: The Development of Resources for Electronic Music in the UK, with Particular Reference to the bids to establish a National Studio (2012)

This thesis traces the history and development of the facilities for electronic music in the UK. It covers the early attempts to experiment with electronic music and create studios in less than ideal circumstances and the subsequent bids to create a national centre. It also covers some elements of worldwide development of electronic music and sound recording, in particular those which occurred before 1965. The thesis calls upon non-traditional sources and the author was able to access many documents in the personal archives of electronic music pioneers. There is substantial reference to committees and societies for electronic music and their effects on the development of facilities for electronic music in the UK. Some of the early pioneers are studied in detail; these include Daphne Oram, Tristram Cary and Hugh Davies. Unprecedented access to information on Hugh Davies and Daphne Oram was provided by the family estates of these recently deceased composers. This allowed the author to gain valuable insight into the working patterns and methodology of these composers. Many references to later pioneers such as Trevor Wishart are also made but the focus remains on the facilities available to composers rather than the composers and their works.

Doctoral thesis
Music Department, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Durham University, 2012
189 pages

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