74.48 DB(A)
4.48 dB(A)
Buffering Love in a Hopeless Place
A sonic datastructure.
Programmed, synthesized, and processed by Igor Štromajer and his computers
The title – 74.48 dB(A) – represents the measured average sound pressure level in decibel in the central processing hub of a data center, where the A-weighting curve simulates the human ear’s response to the raw acoustic power of the hardware.
The sonic datastructure 74.48 dB(A) is an acoustic dissection of a heretical technological sacredness. At the core of the composition lies the processor noise of a server hall, establishing a decaying, mathematical, techno-sacred experience through a monotonous sequence of hums and mechanical sounds. This non-human sonic landscape deciphers the materiality of the internet, which manifests through constant vibration, heat, and forced mechanical cooling.The server room transforms from technical infrastructure into a consecrated space of mathematics, a hopeless place where the biological body can no longer survive due to noise and sterility. Here, the data stream reaches its harmonic peak within a post-human environment where machines communicate with one another in total autonomy, devoid of any human interaction or intervention.
This sonic architecture offers the illusion of salvation through the non-stop flow of information. Every single fan in this system acts as a prayer wheel, maintaining the stability of a fractured digital self in an infinite loop.The core state of this meditative sonic experience is buffering. In the server environment, love, affect, and identity cease to be fixed points; they become ongoing processes, constantly loading but never fully materializing. Simultaneously, the sonic datastructure deconstructs the myth of the ethereal data-cloud, confronting the audience with the brutal physical force required to sustain modern metaphysics. This non-human mantra, where noise and grief are the only remaining relics, offers failed tactics for transcending political anxiety and establishes meaningless strategies of groundless resistance.
IGOR ŠTROMAJER
Igor Štromajer – also known as intima.org – is a non-amateur level electric non-artist, “le Pavarotti du HTML”. He explores tactical artistic techno-performative research intimate guerrilla, and low-tech communication strategies.
He has shown his work at more than two hundred exhibitions in more than sixty countries (transmediale, ISEA, EMAF, SIGGRAPH, Ars Electronica Futurelab, V2_, IMPAKT, CYNETART, Manifesta, FILE, Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Hamburg Kunsthalle, ARCO, Banff Centre, Les Rencontres Internationales, The Wrong – New Digital Art Biennale and in numerous other galleries and museums worldwide) and received a number of awards (in Frankfurt, Moscow, Hamburg, Dresden, Belfort, Madrid, Maribor).
His projects form part of the permanent collections of the prestigious art institutions, among them Le Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Computerfinearts Net and Media Art Collection in New York, and the Maribor Art Gallery in Slovenia.
As a guest artist he lectures at universities and contemporary art institutes. Štromajer lives and works between Frankfurt am Main and Maribor / Ljubljana.
credits:
great many thanks to Igor Štromajer and his computers for 74.48 dB(A) – Buffering Love in a Hopeless Place!
additional info:
includes radia jingles (in/out), station and program info/intro (english)
The weather was gritty, slush and gravel spurted from the cars in the road…
FLOATING FIELD RESEARCH
in two pieces by GABI SCHAFFNER
The first piece is Kukka Shop Overdrive (2021). The location: A small kiosk selling flowers and eggs, next to a heavily trafficked road on the island of Lajasalo in Helsinki. The shop has been in the neighborhood for the last 20 years I was told, but egg sales occur only on Wednesdays. They are sold in trays by 40 pieces only. The weather was gritty, slush and gravel spurted from the cars in the road and form the overall backdrop of the ‘kukka’ shop conversations.
The recordings: All recordings originate either from the site of the ‘kukka’ shop at Lajasalo and another flower shop in Mäntta – and finally a private greenhouse in Taiwan.
Additional sounds derive from the frying of several eggs and a visit to a chicken shack in Ruovesi to collect more eggs.
Credits for Kukka Shop Overdrive (2021)
Field Recordings and composition: Gabi Schaffner.
Voice Taiwan: Margaret Shiu, Bamboo Curtain Studio, Taipei.
Chicken: Tyyra Jukka, Ruovesi.
Credits for Schweben | Floating (2023)
Stimmen/Voices: Claudia, H.W., Karim, Jann, L., Mathias, Tina.
Piano: Renard.
Fieldrecordings: Gabi Schaffner.
Other: “Ein Zimmer voller Sterne”, Schaffner, 2020.
Gabi Schaffner works as an interdisciplinary sound artist and curator. Her artistic practice is determined by the methods of poetic ethnography in connection with fluxus-like mise-en-scènes, radio-making and sound art performances. Much of her work originates from journeys. Next to her radiophonic productions, Schaffner creates speculative musical genres and inserts them into music history in order to raise awareness for cultural, gender-related and/or geographical conditions. Schaffner has been realising award-winning productions with Deutschlandfunk Kultur, radia.fm, Hessian Cultural Radio and ABC Australia. Since 2012 she maintains DATSCHA RADIO, a nomadic transmission project that links the medium of radio to current ecological issues.
great many thanks to GABI SCHAFFNER for FLOATING FIELD RESEARCH … and we also say thank you to her artistic collaborators, contributors and donators – especially to Augustin the cat!
I dreamt of giant ‘musical waves’
LOFI LOOP #7 : HAND MADE GENERATIVE MUSIC (RADIA MIX)
by GABI SCHAFFNER
“Loop #7 evolved from recent experiments in micro-looping and its influence on time perception. In 2021, sifting through tons of field recordings for the 22-hour {A Wave Novel} for radioart.zone, I dreamt of giant ‘musical waves’ generated for this mission by some really smart and lucid machine/program/spaceship. It did not happen. Instead, I assembled everything by hand.” (Gabi Schaffner)
Gabi Schaffner works as an interdisciplinary sound artist and curator. Her artistic practice is determined by the methods of poetic ethnography in connection with fluxus-like mise-en-scènes, radio-making and sound art performances. Much of her work originates from journeys. Next to her radiophonic productions, Schaffner creates speculative musical genres and inserts them into music history in order to raise awareness for cultural, gender-related and/or geographical conditions. Schaffner has been realising award-winning productions with Deutschlandfunk Kultur, radia.fm, Hessian Cultural Radio and ABC Australia. Since 2012 she maintains DATSCHA RADIO, a nomadic transmission project that links the medium of radio to current ecological issues.
Sampling, Composition and Mix: Gabi Schaffner 2024
Contributors (in order of appearance):
“Sedna’s Glove”, Video Music: Gabi Schaffner 2006. Portable Record Player: Oliver Augst 2014. Organ: Tobias Lange 2021. Cat: Augustin, 2019. Taiwan Market Snippet: Datscha Radio Archive 2019. Saurophone: Yrjänä Sauros, Kokkola 2007. Wool-Drones: Elo Masing, 2022. Guitar Pick: Peter Apel, 2022. Museum Voice: Bangalore 2017. Unknown Ukulele-Player and Singing Saw: Mimosa Pale, 2021. Others: Gabi Schaffner.