Australasian Sound Recordings Association Conference

Australasian Sound Recordings Association Conference
http://www.asra.asn.au
1-3 September 2010, hosted by the State Library of Victoria

Outside the Circle sound culture beyond the mainstream

'Outside the Circle' will explore the development and growth of sound cultures that began life outside of commercial and mainstream circles. The conference aims to provide a forum for discussions concerning collections, recordings, research and technology based on alternative perspectives and paradigms. We hope to learn more about the individuals and groups working on the ‘outside’ as well as their unusual uses of recorded sound. How is material generated from these alternative sources collected, preserved and accessed? What impact might this have on curatorial policy?

visit the 2010 conference page for details on the presentations, or visit the registration page if you would like to attend

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The 2010 Alice Moyle Lecture "Pecan Summer - Indigenous Opera is here" will be presented by Deborah Cheetham, Indigenous soprano, actor, opera composer and author at 11am Thursday 2nd September.
http://www.deborahcheetham.com/pecan_summer

Keynote Presentation
Melbourne born composer and sonologist Paul Doornbusch will present the 2010 keynote presentation on CSIRAC which was the fourth all electronic digital computer in the world, and the first in Australia. Through a confluence of personnel and events, it was also the first computer to play music. This talk discusses the music made by CSIRAC, its reconstruction and significance.
http://www.doornbusch.net/CSIRAC/index.html

Performance by Winduptoys
Winduptoys is an Electronic / Dub duo, comprising of Robert U.J. Boehm (aka Bo) and Jeremy P.C. Smith. Winduptoys use old technology in new and innovative ways, as well as incorporating technology failure, accidents, field recordings and unusual samples into their various creations.
www.myspace.com/winduptoysmusic

More is Less - Abuse and Excess in Dance Music
ARIA award winning musician/producer Jamie Stevens asks is there a relationship between the saturation of mediocre electronic music in the electronic music market place and the growth of regularly pirated/easily attainable high-tech software?
http://www.myspace.com/jamiestevens

Magic Lantern and Music Show (Melbourne Museum)
A Magic Lantern and Music Show at the Melbourne Museum presented by David Demant, Senior Curator Information and Communication at Museum Victoria.
http://museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/

Australian Mediatheque
And as an optional extra for the last session for the day, an exclusive Conference information session will be held at the Australian Mediatheque
http://www.acmi.net.au/australian_mediatheque.htm.
Numbers are strictly limited. Send your nomination to the Conference Convener by August 16th.

Other (provisional) papers over the 3 days include:
* Musician, composer and producer David Bridie talks about his recording career and involvement in music projects in Melanesia.
* Founder of the Shame File Music record label Clinton Green presents an historical overview of the "Australian cassette underground".
* Herpetologist Murray Littlejohn presents the paper "Acoustic communication in frogs: structure and function of signals".
* In "Hidden inside, new ways of thinking about collections" Mick Newnham looks at how new ways of exploring and interpreting a collection may be used to support other fields of research.
* Rachael Bongiorno from the National Ethnic and Multicultural Broadcasters’ Council outlines a new online multilingual radio website.
* In the paper "If a man is good enough, he should get the job" Peter Kolomitsev describes an amateur and outsider's legacy in the Mountford-Sheard collection at the State Library of South Australia.
* Dr Shannon Faulkhead looks to a time when Koorie knowledge can co-exist within Victoria's collective knowledge in "Respectful Co-existence of Orality and Text".
* In "Popular Song Transmogrified: Billy Williams 1910 Australian Tour" Jeff Brownrigg asks were sound recordings a sort of new folk minstrelsy?
* Ken Berryman reveals the hidden treasure of the Oral History collection at the National Film and Sound Archive in his paper "Mainstream Interviewing : Getting Outside the Circle".
* In "Selected aspects of popular electronic music in the 1980s" Martin Koszolko focuses on the work of music producers and sound engineers and their role in sonically shaping electronic pop music.
* In his paper "Messiaen in Australia, May 1988" Vincent Plush details the French composer's quest to observe the great Australian lyrebird.
* Composer / Sound Designer for the games industry Stephan Schütze describes the methods of producing audio for the games industry and how sound can reinforce a narrative flow.
* And Danny Ford’s 'Cassette Project' focuses around the uses and cultural image of the object of the blank cassette.

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Call For Papers: Australasian Sound Recordings Association Conference (note: the submission date has passed)

Exploration – Possible Topics *
Margin Notes: Items that may not fit within the collection policies of local, state and national institutions. This may include material from marginalised or geographically isolated groups and communities.
Illegal Audio: Sampling, “plunderphonics”, ownership and copyright issues, banned records, surveillance recordings, DX scanning, pirate radio.
Found Sound: Recordings from public spaces, dumped collections, unidentified personal tapes.
Crazy: The plain crazy and humourous use of sound used in advertising to promote products, events and awareness campaigns.
Open Networks: New technical ideas about the distribution and availability of audio materials.
Fading Shadows: Acoustic ecology and the significance of disappearing acoustic spaces.
Logical & Biological: The use of sound recording in specialist areas of scientific research such as zoology, medicine, geology and astrophysics.
Quite Normal: The work of lateral thinkers, eccentrics and inventors and their contribution to historic and contemporary sound culture.
La Difference: What do small collections and bequests have to offer which is so different and interesting?
Expected, Not: Unusual or surprising uses of sound recording in areas such as linguistic research, court cases, therapy, sonification, experimental poetry, archaeology.
Impossible Musics: The impossible to categorise. How “ephemeral” is “ephemeral”?
The Long Tail: Social networking has allowed people to share and re-discover recordings with a freedom that was unimaginable a generation ago.
* Please note that topic outlines are meant only as a guide.

Submissions CLOSING DATE June 30, 2010
Submissions are invited for formal papers as well as proposals for performance, listening sessions, information exchanges, conversations, panel talks, technical workshops and demonstrations.

ASRA was formed in 1986, from the Australian Branch of the International Association of Sound Archivists. ASRA is an association for those interested in recorded sound. The Association is made up of private record collectors, professional sound archivists, radio broadcasters and social historians, consisting of individuals and institutions with a strong interest in sound recording history, its development and all related activities.