Successive Actions cover

Simon WhethamSuccessive Actions

Crónica 225 CD

Release: 5 November 2024

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  1. Action
  2. Reaction
  3. Inaction
  4. Redaction
  5. Subtraction
  6. Impaction
  7. Compaction
  8. Overreaction
  9. Retroaction
  10. Counteraction
  11. Dissatisfaction
  12. Interaction
  13. Abstraction
  14. Distraction
  15. Contraction
  16. Protraction

Successive Actions is an iteration of the larger kinetic sound performance project series Channelling in which various motor devices, salvaged from obsolete and discarded consumer technology, are activated by playing sound recordings through them. In turn, this produces new sounds from the devices, which are amplified using various microphones and techniques.The title comes from Dirk Raaijmakers’s The Art of Reading Machines as a term for mass production processes. As such, the recordings played through the devices are recordings of other devices used in previous versions of Channelling, in which the sounds used were seemingly mundane sound phenomena that occur unpredictably and irregularly in everyday life, as passing traffic, wind, doors closing. So now the sounds of devices malfunctioning and breaking from their programming are causing further action and disruption. Successive Actions has been presented in a number of international festivals and events, most recently Sofia Underground, Bulgaria; WeSA Festival, South Korea; New Adits, Austria; and Sonica Festival, Slovenia, where it was also exhibited as an installation.

Cover images from Dierk Raabe’s Discrete Dislocation Dynamics in 2D, 2013, restored by Andrew Whiteside.

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