Andrew Kettle: sound jeweller

Richard Wilding

Andrew Kettle is a Brisbane-based sound artist whose works have generally dealt with experiments in noise and tonal perception. He is incredibly active (to the point of hyperactive) in the electronic music scene with regular interstate performances and collaborations while hosting a regular slot on radio station 4ZZZ — Atmospheric Disturbances. I first met Andrew at last year’s ADAPT (Analogue Digital & Physical Technologies) festival in Brisbane where he performed several works including The Turing Test for 8 electronic organs and a mammoth 9-hour piece, Drone 9, which exploited the acoustic properties of an alley way for an immersive experience that included the listener’s whole body. I was interested in hearing what he had planned for ADAPT this year, so I met him at an appropriately noisy cafe in Fortitude Valley where he had laid out 2 rings of resin with lengths of black signal cable attached. Closer inspection revealed that coils of copper wire were encased within the clear resin.

They’re induction microphones for the ADAPT performance. A performer wears them on their fingers and uses them to interact with electromagnetic radiation given off by domestic appliances. My performance has this little temple set-up and one element is a microwave with a chicken cooking and the other is a television. It’s a half-hour performance starting with programming the microwave (I really like the idea of timed performances). So there’ll be this microwaved chook and a video playing on the television, but I haven’t decided on that as yet—maybe it’ll be Teletubbies The inductive microphones will pick up all the electromagnetic radiation coming from the appliances and I’ll be doing some slow tai-chi choreography that interacts with the fields. It’ll be a cult celebration of static. I appropriated the induction coils from telephone contact mikes…and molded the resin myself. They’ve turned out beautifully—like sound jewellery.

The performance will be part of the Saturday night event called Nocturnal and I’ll be appearing along with four other artists. Brendan Palmer from SBS’ Alchemy will be there and Octagroove will be playing along with other electronic acts. After ADAPT I’ll be heading to Newcastle for Electrofringe (www.octapod.org.au/electrofringe/2000/) where I’ll be performing and speaking at conference forums.

You have a visual arts college background, so what shifted you into in working with sound?

Firstly, my exposure to computers in the early ‘90s and playing around with software to produce tones from formulas and computer voice generation. The computers were nothing special, just XTs—you can get more powerful pocket calculators these days—but it was great stuff. Secondly, I was living out on a property to escape city life for a while and listening to Radio National a lot. I was hearing the effects of sunspot activity on the signal, hearing it fade in and out from day to night.

You were listening to the texture of the radio signals themselves?

Yeah, I’d be listening to 4QR and hearing this strange squealing sound in the background. It was sunspot activity interfering with the radio waves—really amazing stuff. I became interested in static and the noises of technology. Last year at ADAPT I gave a masterclass on noise, about where to find noise and how to incorporate it into composition, looking at different sources of digital noise and static such as sunspot activity. I showed how mobile phones interfered with musical equipment using a home organ.

All of that led on to the desire to find more sources of electromagnetic noises and I began working with inductive microphones to reveal the sounds of CPU chips in computers, fax modems, scanners and whatever else. I was working with all this digital equipment to produce analogue noise! Some of that material will be used by the Melbourne animator Junia Wulfe in her short film Gray. The soundtrack will consist mainly of noises from different domestic sources such as computers, microwaves, televisions, alarm clocks, anything—whatever makes electromagnetic radiation in the house.

You’re obviously very interested in taking domestic items and appliances and turning them into performance elements. Is this a common thread in your work?

I suppose one of the requirements behind the elements that I use is that they have to be cheap and ready-made. I did The Turing Test performance last year with multiple home electronic organs. In the late 70s and early 80s all these drum machines and electronic keyboards became cheap enough for most people to buy and as a result, in the midst of all this, electronic dance music was created. I was looking at the end of the 90s for what was cheap and nasty for people to reappropriate and saw that home organs in The Trading Post were 50 bucks. So I acquired a few of these for the performance and also as a source for parts such as speakers and small amplifiers to use later on in other works. But in the end it wasn’t so cheap after I’d bought 8 of the things and it was a nightmare to cart them around—I still have 4 in the garage! I said I’d never do that again but I was still interested in using organs. Anyway, at Christmas I found some cheap little kids’ organs for about 3 dollars and pulled them apart to make these electronic mouth organs which I used in a piece called Earth Hum. Great or innovative designs can be quite simple and essentially it was about looking for what I could do cheaply because, in Brisbane, experimental music doesn’t pay for itself.

You’re also interested in the sensual aspect of a sound environment. Drone 9 seemed to be about highlighting the sonic properties of an acoustic space and how a listener perceives those properties when immersed in it.

One of the main motivating elements in my work is wanting to accentuate the senses so that people can have a comparative experience as well as becoming more aware of their senses outside of the range of everyday life. In Drone 9. I wanted people to directly experience pure tones. The electromagnetic stuff I’ve being doing lately involved going around the home and looking at what was actually radiating and realising how much of this field we live in as a permanent state of existence.

It really is a hidden world, isn’t it?

Yes, it is! You look at normal domestic “reality” and you think, “God, the world can’t be this boring?” then you start revealing electromagnetic radiation and suddenly, wow, there’s all this stuff going on! Stoves are brilliant—the hums you get off stoves just give you a nice physical feeling. It’s a powerful field that you can play with tonally and dynamically by moving in and out of it. There is really an aesthetic quality to static. But you also realise that when you’re cooking everything is immersed in intensified electric radiation and you start thinking, “what is that doing?”

So any device you find could potentially become an electronic instrument that works like a Theremin in that you’re using the body to interact with its electromagnetic fields in order to produce tones or hums?

Yes, that’s right. You start wandering around finding all these sources and perhaps begin to that think maybe it’s a really unhealthy environment you live and work in. It’s really in a spirit of exploration.

Like a prospector finding a rich seam to mine…

It’s really exciting now when I look at a new piece of equipment like a digital camera. I wonder what it’s creating as far as electromagnetic radiation is concerned. Digital equipment is great for that, actually being able to hear the CPU and all the data being shunted around on the motherboard—it’s wild stuff! And it does have that chaotic appeal in that you listen to it and hear all those patterns bubbling up. It’s like a new organic in a strange sort of way. I’m interested in looking at the new sounds extracted from our society as the source. The more technology advances the more potential sources of sound are being created.

Nocturnal, Andrew Kettle, ADAPT, Metro Arts Studio Space, Brisbane, September 9—16;

Electrofringe, Newcastle October 5—9.