The multivalent energies artists say: a method for analysis

Abstract

Wild Energy (2014) by the experimental composer Lockwood (b. 1939) is a sound installation in collaboration with sound engineer Bielecki. The composition is made from an arrangement of ten individual sources of energies recorded by scientists and researchers, from those that occur below sea level, to those that can be found beneath the sun’s convection layer. The geophysical, biophysical and magnetospheric recordings are sped up or slowed down to bring them into human hearing range. O’Brien, Kahn, and I began examining how Lockwood understood energy in this and a few related works and found that instead of an assumed predominance of sound and listening, Lockwood had been working with sound as an energy since at least 1971, as she put it in a letter to fellow composer Oliveros. Lockwood discussed trying to know energies, sensing all the interdependence and interactivity, sound being a practical means to convey this broader exploration. This paper will discuss energies in the work of Lockwood, and our historiographic process. Show more