Noise annoys

[imomus]

Back in June 2005, when I was here for a performance art show, I wrote a rather scathing rumination on the poverty of New York textures, wondering why the world's richest country should have some of the world's poorest interfaces. The texture of everyday life -- the tactile quality of the environment we move through -- is something I'm thinking about rather intensely right now because I have to address the AIGA conference at the weekend on the subject of "the future of texture".

Back in 2005 I framed sound pollution as one of New York's textural problems. "Sound is texture too: New York is so noisy I get tinnitus. I'm writing this in a room with an incredibly noisy fan, a deafening garbage truck outside, and a police siren behind that. The examples could go on and on." This year, those examples did go on and on. The clanging, honking, wailing, crashing and shouting was the first thing that hit me in New York. Berlin must be a super-quiet city. Here I have to wear ear protectors the whole time.



A f'rinstance. Yesterday I was at PS1 in Queens. The cafe was shut (even the water seemed shut off at PS1, which felt sadly neglected) so I went to eat lunch at a cheap Chinese place nearby. It was under the elevated subway stop, so every couple of minutes trains would clank round the bend a few feet above us, making an incredible metallic din. Inside the restaurant, though, things were no better. A plasma-screen TV was showing an action movie featuring continuous gunfire.

You'd think the controlled environment of an art museum would be different, but no, it was the same story in PS1 itself. The show Organizing Chaos is described in the blurb as "physically centered around the Luke Fowler video, Pilgrimage from Scatter Points (2006). The 45-minute piece incorporates archival footage and documentary material about British composer Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra, an improvisational group that utilized found, graphic scores rather than traditional sheet music".



Well, great: Luke Fowler is one of my favourite artists, and his Cardew film certainly fits into the Organizing Chaos sound art theme of ambience and randomness. There's just one problem, though, one step too far into randomness: although the label tells us we're watching "Pilgrimage from Scatter Points", the film being shown is actually "What You See is Where You’re At", Fowler's 2001 documentary about anti-psychiatrist R.D. Laing.

It isn't just the wrong documentary, it's also being shown in the wrong conditions. It's impossible to hear the speech on the Fowler soundtrack (issuing through tiny, tinny speakers mounted high on the wall of the echoey room) because the gallery is filled with overspill sound from the installation next door, mingled with the sound of Christian Marclay's "Guitar Drag" video on the other side of the building. This over-exposed piece shows an amplified guitar being dragged along behind a pick-up truck. It makes a godawful racket, which, at PS1, drowned out the quieter pieces in all the connected galleries.

But if it hadn't been the macho Marclay piece making the quieter, more thoughtful Fowler video inaudible, it would have been the rushing roar of the air conditioners or the absurdly loud, garbled transmissions coming from the guards' walkie talkies (yes, the "paranoid security state" follows you even into the inner sanctum of the aesthetic experience). Even the picture is compromised: the DVD machine's on the blink and keeps flashing chapter heading information in a blue band across the screen. I sit there truly saddened by a missed opportunity to see a really interesting piece.

What on earth were the curators thinking? Is the act of selecting the piece all that matters to them? We didn't even see the film they chose! Is the content of the piece, the artist's intention, and the point-of-consumption experience of the viewer irrelevant? Is running a gallery like PS1 just a constant struggle against various forms of chaotic entropy (the aircon is broken, the DVD player is acting up, the wrong disk arrived from Fowler's gallery in Glasgow, we can't stop the guards getting bored and using their radios too much, we couldn't get insulating curtains to stop soundspill happening...) Do the curators think that we won't notice that it's the wrong film, and that it's inaudible? Do they think we just look at the picture for ten seconds then pass on? Is the fact that Cage is in this show an indication that we're supposed to treat all the ambient sound as "music" and just relax and go with the flux and the flow?

Or is it just that a New York art gallery treats sound pretty much the way the city of New York treats sound? As something secondary and uncontrolled, a vacant spectrum up for grabs according to the Hobbsian rule of "survival of the loudest"?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Where were you born and raised? If you don't like it, leave - seriously. It's like moving to a Puerto Rican neighborhood and complaining that they're playing raggaeton too loud - what would happen if you walked out there and told those kind, dear sirs to turn off that racket?

People have done enough to make this city sanitized and boring - and now they want to take it further and get rid of the noise. There are plenty of places that are peaceful and quiet in New York City and the area. Just move there. Some people like it, some don't - if you're one of those who don't, fix your life and move.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

YEAH!!!!!!!!

[onthemoon.livejournal.com]

Way to illustrate my point with an idiotic "love it or leave it" response! Not wanting to deal with pile-driving on a Sunday morning or listen to blaring music (of ANY kind, so hold your presumptuous bullshit) when trying to sleep is hardly a matter of trying to "sanitize" New York.

I find the suburbanization and proliferation of chains to be wholly problematic (and in the case of construction noise a major part of the problem), but putting up with noise and sloppy construction and other basic quality of life nonsense isn't going to bring back the 1980s, cheap-rents, and ease of opportunities for those who don't bleed money. Believe me, if that were the case, I would be more than happy to put up with any levels of ruckus, but it's not the 80s, and the city's finances are not in a hole, so there is no good reason for putting up with all of that. Maybe having a shitty quality of life while still paying out your ass for rent and losing all of the former elements of the city that once made it more unique will afford you the illusion that the city still has some deep dark soul, but you're just kidding yourself.

Oh, and since it seems to matter, I was born and raised in San Francisco, a smaller, but similar city in terms of many of the issues New York did and does deal with over the years. But I guess since I wasn't born and raised in New York, my opinion become null and void, right? Since all 8 million people living in this city, and all of it's past residents, have always been "native new yorkers."

[(Anonymous)]

But it's true - if you want the quiet life, but still want to experience New York City, move to the outskirts like ole Lord Whimsy above did. That way you have a choice and have the best of both worlds.

New York City isn't even that loud anymore - Bloomberg has passed laws limiting 1) motorcycle noise 2) construction noise at certain hours, etc. etc. If you're talking about Puerto Ricans blasting music, they're going to tell any upper class white kid from San Francisco to "move to the suburbs". It's like that in any city., not just New York.

The way you talk about the city is in that upper class white kid transplant way, too - it's just a city where people live, and always have. Most of the old natives left to Jersey or Long Island in the 70s and 80s, and now it's people from San Francisco who want things nice and beige like Gap khakis (aka, quiet and peaceful like a gated community).

Forced silence is like a ball and gag - it's something more violent than moving to an ethnic neighborhood and complaining that they're loud. If you live on the Upper West Side or old ethnic enclaves not known for too much noise (say, Boro Park, the Italian section of Williamsburg, Bay Ridge), those places are almost as quiet as the suburbs.

This whole issue sounds like comfy people who want everything forced into their beige image - even Momus here, the khaki master. Old people like quiet, and as always, old people move to the suburbs when they like quiet. The few old people who do like the vibrant noise of the city stay. That's how it goes. Stop trying to force the beige pallet on the world.

[onthemoon.livejournal.com]

It's funny, I don't recall my race and income (or my parents, before you go there) being broken down in my livejournal profile, but I guess you've got an enemy against the grit of New York in mind and will gladly lump anyone who doesn't fall in line. I fall somewhere right in the middle, and my guess is that your demographic isn't very different. Probably white, probably male, probably not very poor, considering where we are having this discussion. You just happen to have a different view on what makes this city. oh, and the luxory of hiding behind anonymity. You're arguments couldn't be more presumptuous.

My guess is that you would be pretty hard pressed to find folks who don't want less noise pollution in this city, be they rich, poor, black, or white. It is true that those living in poorer neighborhoods are a lot likely to complain, I'll give you that much, but I would venture a guess that that has a lot to do with the fact that the noise pollution has become such commonplace, and that's not really a good thing either, is it? Point is, as it was before, a constant flood of noise is not synonymous with an interesting city. Also, the bulk of the noise that I find most problematic is the constant construction of condos at all (often illegal) hours, and those condos are something that actually DO contribute to ruining this city.

Why is it necessary to equate a desire for a bit more quiet with wanting a gated community or "Gap khakis." You honestly think those are the only folks who don't want a constant barrage of noise? I moved to New York because I do want the activity of the city: to live in walkable neighborhoods and be able to be able to step out of my door and into an array of offerings, to have cultural access, to be able to live easily with out a car, and so on and so forth. I grew up in a city and always will live in a city, so you're "option" of moving to the outskirts with occasional jaunts isn't going to cut it. Certain sacrifices, including noise levels, are a given, but there is a difference between the hum of the city and pure ruckus.

The last thing I want is to turn New York into some "beige Gap Khaki" land. There are far more serious problems in the City, mostly tied in with it becoming so expensive that no one other than hedge-funders and national chains serve a chance of surviving the place. A lot of similar changes have taken place in SF and really ruined it in the same way they are ruining New York. But Momus brought up noise, so that is what we're talking about. Being able to sleep through the night isn't just for "upper class white kids," it's a fair request and something we should all be entitled to in this City. Get over your dream of a New York that is no more and your shitty us vs them attitude that lumps anyone who contradicts you into a grouping of khaki loving rich kids. Saving the pseudo-grit of New York city isn't going to help save it from the death grasp of greed and developers, in fact, it's just going to make people like me who may otherwise be on the same page as you think you're a cunt.

[merrow-sea.livejournal.com]

That's such a racist comment about the Puerto Ricans... I do tell my supposedly dangerous ethnic neighbors to pipe the fuck down when their (usually alcohol-fueled) music and commentary goes on too late into the night. But since I've already made friends with them and they know me, and we like each other, they usually comply. Sometimes sheepishly, with apologies. I loved hanging on the stoop last summer in NY with the Dominican baby-thugs from next door. They're funny and interesting and I've known some of them since they were about 6 years old so I can sass them all I want.

Not all we white people have trust funds, you know? We end up living in sketchy neighborhoods for the cheap rents. Some of us actually enjoy it. Doesn't mean we don't need sleep.

[onthemoon.livejournal.com]

Exactly.