Where, exactly, is “the field” implied by field recording? Can you make a “field recording” inside your own home? What does the widespread dissemination of portable recording devices mean for the future of sonic practices? Is the sound of your everyday life already a work of music? In this hybrid lecture presentation and artist’s talk, Drew and M.C. Schmidt of Matmos will discuss the political and social questions of consent, control, access and “shareveillance” that surround their critical and creative practices of sampling and composition. The talk will discuss both their work as electronic musicians in Matmos and “Quarantine Supercut”, a globally crowdsourced audio collage documenting the public and private sounds of life during COVID lockdown.
As part of this event, the Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities will bring IU scholarship and artistic production into conversation with Matmos’ work through contributions from students and alumni. Ethnomusicology alumna Dr. Allie Martin explores sonic patterns in soci-cultural discourses and current BFA candidate Devon Fisher examines the use of sound in interactive art installations.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Matmos’ M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel are a Baltimore-based duo that make electronic music, often emphasizing conceptual restriction and unusual sound sources, that moves across genres and forms. They have been continuously active as collaborators, producers and performers since 1997, releasing ten albums that venture across a wide array of thematic concerns and sampling tactics: their catalogue starts from strict cut-ups of everyday objects, and meanders across folk and country forms, surgical procedures, queer sonic portraits, medieval and early music, synthesis, telepathic sensory deprivation experiments, an album made entirely out of a washing machine, and an album examining the omnipresence of plastic waste. Their most recent triple album, “The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form” was released by Thrill Jockey Records in August of 2020.