
Laurie Spiegel                          Â

Aura Satz
Aura Satz’s ‘Preemptive Listening’ is a documentary feature film which re-imagines sirens in order to forge a new understanding of present and long term emergencies. Through a soundtrack of new siren sounds composed by an array of experimental musicians, the film asks: Does an alarm have to be alarming? How can we counter alarm fatigue, both as a lived reality and as a metaphor for our current state? Can we envision sounds not only scored to immediacy, but signals set to a longer temporal frame, sounding the alarm for the distant future, the cries on the cusp of ecological catastrophe?
Electronic music pioneer Laurie Spiegel and artist film-maker Aura Satz discuss ‘Preemptive Listening,’ the collaborative process whereby the score and sound came into existence prior to the film, as well as their previous collaborations and respective practices. In particular the talk will focus on the two crucial segments of the film scored by Spiegel, one using the astronomical sounds of planets; the other drawing on the threat of extinction that includes audio recordings of manatees, cicadas, and a dog.Â
2 hours with Q&A.
Ticket includes unlimited access to recording of the talk.
Ticket holders will be able to view ‘Preemptive Listening’ during the 48 hours prior to the talk.
LAURIE SPIEGEL
Laurie Spiegel is best known as composer, software designer, plucked instruments player and for her pioneering work with several early electronic and computer music systems, including GROOVE at Bell Labs, her programme for early personal computers ‘Music Mouse – An Intelligent Instrument’, and for creating the opening track of the Voyager Spacecraft’s ‘Sounds of Earth’ record. But she has also been active in soundtrack composition since the early 1970s, when that occupation was still virtually all men. After a few years composing soundtracks for a small New York production company, Spiegel apprenticed then worked through the late 1970s as a music editor for films in a midtown film cutting room. After that she moved on to music technology as her main work. Her participation in Aura Satz’s Preemptive Listening is the latest in a series of several collaborations between the two artists, during which many interesting conversations took place.
Photo by Srini Venkateswaran.
AURA SATZ
Aura Satz (b. 1974, Barcelona) is a London-based artist who works with film, sound, performance and sculpture. Her works explore a distributed, expanded and shared notion of voice, and are made in conversation, using dialogue as both method and subject matter. Satz has made several film portraits of listening and compositional practices as well as works centred on sound technology and unusual notation systems. ‘Preemptive Listening’ is her first feature, with support from an artist’s residencies at Walker Arts Centre and EMPAC, and funded by an AHRC fellowship hosted at the Royal College of Art.
       She has performed, exhibited and screened her work internationally, including Tate Modern, BFI Southbank, Hayward Gallery, Sydney Biennale, NTT InterCommunication Center Tokyo, High Line Art NY, the Rotterdam Film Festival, MoMA NY, Sharjah Art Foundation, Kadist San Francisco, Onassis Stegi, and Sonic Acts. Solo exhibitions include the Wellcome Collection; the Hayward Gallery project space; John Hansard Gallery; George Eastman Museum; Dallas Contemporary; ARTIUM, Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo; Kunstnernes Hus; as well as special screening programmes at the Rotterdam Film Festival, The New York Film Festival, Tate Britain, Whitechapel Gallery and more. Her films are distributed by LUX.Â