Merzbow is probably the most direct influence on what I’m planning to make. I’ve been familiar with his work for a while, Pulse Demon was the entry point for me as is probably the case for most people. Something that interests me about Merzbow’s work is how it resists being consumed passively, It’s not exactly elevator music. It is very demanding of the listener, even repelling some entirely. That quality is something I’d like to explore in my own work.
Paul Hegarty’s writing on Merzbow in Noise/Music was something I’d already encountered before this project, and it gave me a useful framework for thinking about why noise functions the way it does. He argues that noise is defined by exclusion, it’s what a system rejects in order to constitute itself as meaningful. Applied to platform audio, that means noise is structurally opposed to everything these platforms are designed to produce. It’s got me thinking about the politics of noise art, something I’d like to explore further.
I came across Ultra-red through research for this project. Their approach is different from Merzbow’s, it’s more about using listening as a collective political tool. They work with communities facing housing inequality and other forms of social exclusion, using sound walks and group listening sessions as a method of political organising. The idea that listening itself can be a form of resistance is something I want to carry into my work, even if the method is completely different. Where Ultra-red slow things down and create space for reflection, I think it would be interesting to explore it from the opposite angle, as a kind of statement about how noisy and chaotic life can be.
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