In the age of High Fidelity audio transmission, storage and reproduction, the Western Art Music Tradition has tended to regard the apparatus as a silent or invisible component of the art, particularly in the performance context of what was once called "tape music". One notion, being that the ideal art music is pure: without media, without embodiment, and without the intervention and corruption of performers or performance. In publicly staged "tape music" events, audiences usually see loudspeakers dressed in black, with the intention of fading into darkness.
For this session, Anderson discusses his own interest in the how the apparatus acts to create meaning as both a "silent" and "speaking" actor in the acousmatic art. This, being one of the themes of the works of the Epiphanie Sequence, of which Pacific Slope is the concluding part. Framed in the context of Michael Dellaira’s Modes of Recording, interesting examples from the repertoire are presented. Likewise, a few instances of reflection on production and representations of performance in popular cinema are reviewed. In addition, the session will close with an open discussion on the use of the author's Ambisonic Toolkit (ambisonictoolkit.net) for sound imaging, synthesis and signal processing within the Epiphanie Sequence.