Art to lunch: David Broker: D - Anna Marsden: A
Andrew Kettle: K

D: It's 15 minutes past 1and we have been listening to 'Know your Chicken" by Ze-bo matter. And we are talking to a man that certainly knows his chicken and I'd like to welcome Andrew Kettle in the studio..
K: Well welcome ladies and gentleman and welcome along to the 4zzz national race day. It's a very clear crystal spring day being sunday in Brisbane. And up in the stalls, in the first is the Elektrosonic Interference, sound art collaboration down at the Powerhouse; followed into the second stall is 'The Sound Summit', the Newcastle, Electrofringe, youth culture, independant labels conference; in the third stall is "Small Black Box', the monthly performance at Metro Arts of experimental music; "Spectacle" which is an installation of sound art up in Toowoomba coming up in October; "Liquid Architecture" which is a national sound art conference down in Melbourne which has just unfortunately bolted out of the gates and finished last weekend; [laughter] and we just have the 'Art Beat' collective which is a collaborative of artist communities which is being formed and starting with a launch up in October at the Soup Box gallery which has a performance by yours truly; in the seventh position is of coarse is this years annual years 'MAAP' which has a sound art component in it called "Audio Only" which is a darkened theatre where people can where blindfolds and just listen to art which should be very fantastic; [laughter] over in Perth we have the "Totally Huge New Music" festival; in Sydney and Melbourne we have the "What is Music?" festival; we have just concluded in the twelth position the "D>Art", the digital art festival down in Sydney; following up with the QPIX's "Many Houses", the short film for the Centenary of Federation of four chosen directors; and in the final stall is the instrument builder Andrew Kettle, who has just unfortunately morphed into a huge moster and is attacking 4ZZZ! He's attacking the Art to Lunch crew! Somebody has to do something! Quickly!
D & A: .................
A: Settle down.
D: I think we have decome redundant, Anna.
[laughter]
D: Sorry..... now....
A: Please explain... I've just been too busy reading a paper about how Tom Cruise is after Gwenith Pultro.
[laughter]
D: That's a shock.
K: That's terrible.
A: Can you say that again for me?
K: oh, o.k.... here we go..
D: So, Andrew we have invited you here today not to publicise your own events...
K: Sorry about that.
D: But to talk about Noise.
K: Well, that was noise.
D: Well, it certainly was. We have obviously invited exactly the right person to speak about Noise. The first question and I'm sorry for being so serious is: What is Noise?
K: Well, Noise is a new form of artistic development in the electronic and contemporary classical music genre.
D: I suspected as much.
K: Yes that is exactly right. It's a new form and genre of expression that is using hand build instruments or a new expression and language that is purely chaotic...
D: And why has Noise become so popular suddenly? It seems sudden to me. I'm sure it's not. There seems to be a chrushendo virtually of Noise around the world in recent times.
K: Well, we can sharpen our knives and attack the beast which is Noise and we would find that when we start chopping it's legs off that we would find that the foundation of noise is a community based social expression that is similiar to modern folk music!
D: Crips! I don't believe that! That's Bullshit!
[laughter]
A: Yeah, now you are being a bit of a wanker. [laughter] Can I just say, that I shouldn't have had that maple syrup this morning... arrrr.... Did Noise exist before you had a wanky definition for it?
K: Actually, Noise you can date back to the 1940's with the whole Dadaist movement...
A: Can't you date it back to the stone age?
K: I'm not quite sure. Knocking sticks together was a language that we used. You would consider it to be noise. I mean traffic noise certainly didn't exist back then, and that is quite a large proportion of...
D: Now, ....
A: So, you is the inventor of Noise?
K: oh, Nature of coarse.
A: Of coarse it is.
D: I was sitting in my noisey flat yesterday...
A: That's not Noise, David.
K: Yes it is. It is an Appreciation of your environment.
D: What you are going to hear is creatures scuffling around in the palm trees, mobile phones going off all the time, buzzes for people coming into the houses.. Jesus! It's noisey these days. I mean it never used to be like this. Is that what has made people focus on the idea of Noise?
K: Yes, I think that is the social environment that we consider Art to be created in and it is a direct result that people are creating which fits into that environment that you can put a CD into the CD player that is just harsh electronic Noise which is generated by small electronic appliances.
D: Is there any edifying or useful about this?
K: Insect repellent. Neighbourhood evictions. Sctructural destruction where you can find the resonant frequency for a building and loosen the mortar and the whole building collapses.
D: I mean how does all the Noise that you make for example help me get through this crisis that I'm having?
K: Well, the great thing about my latest performance which is usiing electromagnetic radiation, we do this performance where we do tia-chi movements within television radiation fields. And what is brings to you as an audience member is a greater appreciation of the world that surrounds you and the fascination of the greater phsyical and scientific...
D: That sounds dangerous to me if you are doing tia-chi in a radiation field.
K: Well, the danger comes from a naivitity that you might approach it, I mean if you don't know what you are doing you can blow yourself up or electrocute yourself and that would be the end of your career pretty much.
[laughter]
K: I mean that it's a fascinating would that you take part in and get to know as much as any palette is concerned.
D: So when you are ... I mean so you are one of Brisbane's leading exponents of the area of Noise.. umm, and I know that you probably don't like to heard that...
A: You're a Noise-ologist!
D: I mean, when you are creating Noise what is going on in your mind?
K: A complete fascination with the world that surrounds us. The research that I do for my performances with electromagnetic radiation is looking into the physics.
D: So, it really is Art!
A: Would you be really happy if you got tenitous?
K: No. As a sound artist I would be completely destroyed.
A: Would it be quite comforting for you?
K: No. I would loose all my hearing. That would be terrible, like if I was a visual artist and lost my sight. I mean I would have to go around touching everything and that could be quite bad in an art gallery opening. I might get the audience and not the art. Wel, that is the other thing with Noise is that if you create these performances that use all this harsh Noise is that it makes people really appreciate their ears and really appreciate their hearing.
D: There is another trend developing or fad for artists to include sound elements in their work that is ... well, you are a person that...
K: I think that modern instruments, and modern instrument building and diversifying the instruments that we can use has really improved. I mean it was happening in the 40's with the Dadaist where they where producing bansaw type or sandpaper type instrument that would rub again things, like the Woofer box, that where part of classical instrument; incorporating engines into orchestral music and it goes all the way back to 1912-14 with old recordings on wax cyclinder...
D: Is there any similarity with when Stravinsky premiered the 'Rites of Spring' in Paris and people threw cabbages..
[laughter]
K: It was brilliant, it created riots on the street and people wripping up the furniture!
D: Yeah, well people at that time would have though that that is nothing but a bloody noise, that there is nothing there, but today we think that ..
K: Well it is contextural.
D: Yeah, with lyrical and all those things that you want out of music and it's a fabulous peice in fact, but do you think in fact that what is noise today is going to be music tomorrow? Or, is this the reason that people are experimenting with Noise?
K: In some way you can re-define your surroundings or re-contexturise your surroundings and I actually imagine that when you think about the technology that we have gone through and the old technology that we used to have and I know that we where just talking about mobile phones before, well that is going to date and to hear the old sounds of those instruments that to some extent is going to be historical as well.
D: The mobile phone has a great deal to answer for in the sense that no longer do phones ring they do all sorts of strange things, they vibrate.
A: Well, they are so personalised now.
K: Well, that and it's given us a greater appreciation of broadcast spectrum and radio frequency, I mean our government is selling off bands of radio frequency for this hi-data transfer. To think that our government sells that airwaves is quite a strange thing, as it does with community radio stations.
[laughter]
A: Because you are at the forefront of Noise, the revolution that is Noise and the whole thing that David was saying about the noise that we hear today and in 20 years time will it be like Shakespeare and that kind of stuff, how do you know with all the noises going on which are the best? Which are going to survive? Good Noise from bad Noise.
K: Artistic discretion.
A: O.k. what about the people that are saying, "I don't know what the hell they are talking about." If you could give a recommendation as to what is the best Noise thing to go to see, who has the best Noise? Apart from you...
K: Ummm... oh,.... I really don't mean to be exclusionary in what people are doing..
A: I mean if people are going around, what would be in Brisbane that would be good to see?
K: One of the best things that I am involved with at the moment is an artist collaboration with Barry Schwartz down at the Powerhouse, he is a hi-voltage electrical sculptor... actually when you get into these areas of sound art and Noise, language starts failing. I mean you start to explain and define situation.How do you define a situation when he uses hi-voltage and not electricute himself to produce an amasing performance that you can't conceivably describe with another artist that uses uses chimneys to produce pipe organs using propain explosions as the key notes? I mean he is a Dutch artist living in Germany that has come over...
A: Mercy. You have to see it to believe it, don't you.
K: It's a ten week artist residency that is ending up in a three night performance.
A: And when is that.
K: Early September. It's been in the program for ages. These artists have never been in Australia. The calibre in the genre of what these artists are doing, it hasn't been in Australia and being an artists assistant is an amasing opportunity, as far as .
A: So, keep you eye out for that.
D: So there really is a Noise Revolution and you are in the forefront.
K: I think that you can really politicise it and you can attack the beast in a lot of different ways, I'd imagine that what Toth is going to say at the Queensland Arts Gallery is going to be completely different in as far as the Japanese Noise scene is concerned. It is a whole re-definition. Why do we have to use classical instruments? There are a whole lot of old arguments that we can drag out of the closet and whip it to death again. The whole re-contexturising everything.
D: What ever I think we are going to be hearing a lot more noise. Before we thanks Andrew for coming into the studio and telling us all about it, I just wanted to say that at the Queensland Gallery lecture theatre on wednesday form 2-4 pm is Saba Toth will be speaking in a lecture "Ear Aesthetics, ear politics". He will be speaking of Japan's sonic underground.
K: It's going to be brilliant.
D: I think that its going to be brilliant and that is free for everybody so get on down to Queensland Art Gallery. He's from Carbourgh University in Pittsberg in the United States and he is a bit of an authority in the area of Japanese Noise. He will be speaking largely about the politics of Noise. So we are very excited about that. Thank you very much Andrew. It's been very great to have you come in.
A: So elequently put.
D: Andrew is the person it get in contact with if you want to know anything about Noise.