Silent Live Sound Performance: by Cristy-Lee Macqueen
Silver Artrage Festival Silent Disco:
I took part in one of the Pedal Powered Silent Disco at the Cultural Centre on Friday the 24th of October which is one of many curious new events at this year’s Silver Artrage Festival. For those not yet acquainted with this modern festival experience or for those who have walked into one and are still wondering what in the world was happening, allow me to elaborate. A silent disco is part of a new dance area where people in a set space are provided with personal wireless headphones which can be tuned in to listen to a DJ, or sometimes switch between DJ channels. Any outsider walking into the event effectively see a venue of people dancing, yet hear no music, hence silent disco. Overall this makes for an experience like no other, strange at first but easy or simple to get involved with.
As simple as the concept is it still doesn’t take away the bizarre feeling of dancing among people who are quite possibly listening to something totally different than you. As a form of sound art its abstract experimentation with performance and installation mean that each person performs the sounds that they hear differently but the music or sounds are presented only to those wearing the headphones. The Silent Disco was originally introduced into festivals to reduce public noise disruption and create a new party environment for the willing patrons. As it has grown in popularity so too have the direction and creativity of the idea. A ‘silent gig’ is a progression of the silent disco concept, where two bands play live simultaneously within the same venue to compete for the attention of the audience who are wearing wireless headphones to hear the amplified sounds which they can switch between. The World’s First Silent Gig was held on August 13th at the Cardiff Barfly concert in 2008.
The interactivity of this type of sound art enables the controlling and mapping of the sounds to be less of a concern, however it does restrict the sound participation to only those with the headphones. This rings true of the notion that in some sound art and sound art installations sometimes the concept itself is much more meaningful and interesting than the actual sounds or music in the piece. I believe this describes the silent disco efficiently as even though the people do not have control over the timbre of an emulated instrument like in many forms of sound art, watching a room packed full of people dancing individually to music you can’t hear is fascinating. Even more so when you’re dancing yourself and observing the other dancers. The silent disco at the Artrage Festival enticed me to acknowledge that sound art is a greyer area than I originally thought and merges with other forms of expression such as dance and visual art quite dependently at times for particular pieces to work. While the silent disco was unfamiliar it did not make the interactions seem unbelievable.
For more information on the Silent Disco at the Artrage Festival go to http://www.artrage.com.au/festival/view/silver/event/”:http://www.artrage.
com.au/festival/view/silver/event/80
To watch a short video from part of one of the Silent Discos at Artrage Festival go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_IHE2_rYCg