Performa 09: Notes from the Noise Panel

by Biba Bell

Noise, is it pollution? Is it physiological or social assault? Cage said it’s an issue of social justice, that noises have been discriminated against. And with his seminal 4’33”, the Pandora’s box was opened, so said Conrad, noise flooded into music and was lost. The panel was a group of friends, colleagues, collaborators. There were many anecdotes that emerged from the table where sat Tony Conrad, Branden W. Joseph, George Lewis, Arto Lindsay, and Mark Beasley. Mike Kelley was there, talking too from the front row.

Propaganda creates noise where none was before, it steals our ability to listen to our environments.

Tossed around was the notion that music is a domesticating concept. Music is in chords, melodies, there are hundreds of melodies engrained in our minds. Propaganda!!!! Mozart?

For Lindsay noise is pleasurable, associated with ecstasy, orgasm, fulfillment, not the void. There was an apartment in a city somewhere, the orgasms there were too loud, the marshals were called. NOISE Pollution!!!

Conrad said, Noise is already old!! Very old! Older than me!!!! Lovely, what’s new then? New is for the iPod, new is for detergent.

George Lewis told three stories. Inside the third he played a clip of Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach, Freedom Suite, you know the one. The cries and screams hit me every time I listen… they are astounding, agonizing, empowering, fuller than my body. Usually I start crying. This time a jackhammer down on Canal Street went at it in the middle of the sound clip. It distracted me, drilling into and drowning out the cliff edge calls of Lincoln. But then it got underneath and became a terrestrial plateau of grinding asphalt, the noise of the recording danced on top. The jackhammer came and went for the whole panel. People sometimes squirmed and looked around.

Criticism is a form of noise, said Conrad at one point.

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