JrF: when & why did you become interested in field recording ?
ON: I started making music at 9, playing the piano and later clarinet and saxophone. When I left high school I hesitated if I should go to a conservatory or to an art academy. When I studied at the art academy I continued playing saxophone but I wasn’t interested in music theory, all I wanted to do was free improvisation inspired by projected slides. At the same time I started to do my first field recordings and compositions using a Amiga computer and a walkman. After these first attempts the fire was started. I continued to make, what I learned later, were binaural recordings. I used them in an installation I called the ‘Olyphone’ , this was a former organ which was driving fifteen cassette players. An attempt to create a sound composition in space. I called it acoustic cinema. What I liked a lot was the absence of synchronisation. Sometimes it took 3 seconds before a cassette started to play.
Later I bought my first proper recorder and mics. I got involved in an alternative dance music project in which I used my field recordings and processed them with a lot of filtering and sampling. Combing them with found footage and synths.
For 5 years now my work is mainly focused on field recording. Most of my outboard gear is sold or collecting dust on shelves.
JrF: how do you use your field recordings in your own artistic output ?
ON: At the moment there are two main categories in the way I use field recordings. The first is the most challenging for me. As pure as it gets. Better go back to the same spot over and over than create an ideal (non-existing soundscape) recording in the studio. I see myself as a landscape phonographer. In these recordings I am looking for some sort of tension in the recording. Tension in slow evolving texture changes. There has to happen something in the recording beyond the first obvious layer of sound events, there needs to be a more hidden layer. Most of my current work has a duration of one hour or more.
The second use is in different forms of time-lapse recording. I developed several patches in Max/MSP to do this. Depending on my goal they are more or less intelligent. For some projects it takes one year to complete a recording cycle. Searching again for tension which was not perceivable before to the human ear. Is it possible to hear a leaf grow? How does a complete rainstorm sound?
I believe very strongly that human beings are not able to perceive reality as it really is. For me it’s also very important that there is a reason why I do a recording. My work is never just about the audible result. The audible part is only a layer for communication. Although most of the time the concept might not be clear or known to the audience. In my Nothing Satisfies project one of the goals is to record a landscape which is so empty that it leaves a lot of space for the audience to wander off in his or her thought.
JrF: do you regard 'natural' sounds as a musical element (bearing in mind that the conventional definition of 'music' is rapidly becoming obsolete) or as sound ? and how is this definition important to you ? why does it matter ?
ON: The question if one can talk of a composition in the work is not relevant for me as an artist. More interesting is the fact that people have always needed to perceive a certain amount of structure. If this structure is not recognisable directly, unconsciously a human being will search for one.
The recordings I do become composition because I record them. None of the participating sounds in this recording were aware of the fact that they would become part of an aesthetic piece. As an artist it’s my decision to determine a start and end point for an event. After this recording process this composition will never be found as I did back then. That’s also why I always give GPS locations, time and date in liner notes. So you can understand that your listening to the past.
Sound or music is for me more a question of a presence of aesthetics. Compelling compositions have depth. Depth in meaning and in layering. I see it as a personal task to show an audience the beauty of the very ordinary. Sounds or events which are close to nothing.
JrF: has the act of making field recording had an effect (positive or negative) on the way you listen to your everyday surroundings and how has it affected the way you listen to other music and sound (if at all) ?
ON: Sounds around me seem to mix together more and more. In time it becomes more difficult to focus on a conversation and not listen to the noises in the back. I can get very annoyed having to listen to elevator music while having a nice meal in a restaurant. I asked more then once to turn off the music because it was not in harmony with the taste.
Today I read an article in which was stated that more and more European cities become polluted with noise. Then I think of Gordon Hempton and his quest for ‘One square inch of Silence’.
On the other hand it’s very calming. To be able to sit down and listen. To be able to enjoy everyday sounds or a sudden appearance of rhythm or melody. I’ve never looking for an ideal world in which no human sounds are present. This is impossible because when I hear them, I am present and I do not know in what way I influence the sounds around me. Referring to the idea that a sound only exists when one is listening.
ON: I started making music at 9, playing the piano and later clarinet and saxophone. When I left high school I hesitated if I should go to a conservatory or to an art academy. When I studied at the art academy I continued playing saxophone but I wasn’t interested in music theory, all I wanted to do was free improvisation inspired by projected slides. At the same time I started to do my first field recordings and compositions using a Amiga computer and a walkman. After these first attempts the fire was started. I continued to make, what I learned later, were binaural recordings. I used them in an installation I called the ‘Olyphone’ , this was a former organ which was driving fifteen cassette players. An attempt to create a sound composition in space. I called it acoustic cinema. What I liked a lot was the absence of synchronisation. Sometimes it took 3 seconds before a cassette started to play.
Later I bought my first proper recorder and mics. I got involved in an alternative dance music project in which I used my field recordings and processed them with a lot of filtering and sampling. Combing them with found footage and synths.
For 5 years now my work is mainly focused on field recording. Most of my outboard gear is sold or collecting dust on shelves.
JrF: how do you use your field recordings in your own artistic output ?
ON: At the moment there are two main categories in the way I use field recordings. The first is the most challenging for me. As pure as it gets. Better go back to the same spot over and over than create an ideal (non-existing soundscape) recording in the studio. I see myself as a landscape phonographer. In these recordings I am looking for some sort of tension in the recording. Tension in slow evolving texture changes. There has to happen something in the recording beyond the first obvious layer of sound events, there needs to be a more hidden layer. Most of my current work has a duration of one hour or more.
The second use is in different forms of time-lapse recording. I developed several patches in Max/MSP to do this. Depending on my goal they are more or less intelligent. For some projects it takes one year to complete a recording cycle. Searching again for tension which was not perceivable before to the human ear. Is it possible to hear a leaf grow? How does a complete rainstorm sound?
I believe very strongly that human beings are not able to perceive reality as it really is. For me it’s also very important that there is a reason why I do a recording. My work is never just about the audible result. The audible part is only a layer for communication. Although most of the time the concept might not be clear or known to the audience. In my Nothing Satisfies project one of the goals is to record a landscape which is so empty that it leaves a lot of space for the audience to wander off in his or her thought.
JrF: do you regard 'natural' sounds as a musical element (bearing in mind that the conventional definition of 'music' is rapidly becoming obsolete) or as sound ? and how is this definition important to you ? why does it matter ?
ON: The question if one can talk of a composition in the work is not relevant for me as an artist. More interesting is the fact that people have always needed to perceive a certain amount of structure. If this structure is not recognisable directly, unconsciously a human being will search for one.
The recordings I do become composition because I record them. None of the participating sounds in this recording were aware of the fact that they would become part of an aesthetic piece. As an artist it’s my decision to determine a start and end point for an event. After this recording process this composition will never be found as I did back then. That’s also why I always give GPS locations, time and date in liner notes. So you can understand that your listening to the past.
Sound or music is for me more a question of a presence of aesthetics. Compelling compositions have depth. Depth in meaning and in layering. I see it as a personal task to show an audience the beauty of the very ordinary. Sounds or events which are close to nothing.
JrF: has the act of making field recording had an effect (positive or negative) on the way you listen to your everyday surroundings and how has it affected the way you listen to other music and sound (if at all) ?
ON: Sounds around me seem to mix together more and more. In time it becomes more difficult to focus on a conversation and not listen to the noises in the back. I can get very annoyed having to listen to elevator music while having a nice meal in a restaurant. I asked more then once to turn off the music because it was not in harmony with the taste.
Today I read an article in which was stated that more and more European cities become polluted with noise. Then I think of Gordon Hempton and his quest for ‘One square inch of Silence’.
On the other hand it’s very calming. To be able to sit down and listen. To be able to enjoy everyday sounds or a sudden appearance of rhythm or melody. I’ve never looking for an ideal world in which no human sounds are present. This is impossible because when I hear them, I am present and I do not know in what way I influence the sounds around me. Referring to the idea that a sound only exists when one is listening.
3 MP3 extracts + a pdf from Olivier's projects can be found in the 'in place' MP3 library by clicking here
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