Disquiet

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.

These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):

Disquiet Junto Project 0453: Dial Up The Assignment: Imagine the technologically mediated First Contact through sound.

Step 1: The SETI Institute posts an artistic challenge this month. This month’s was issued by the organization’s co-founder, Dr. Jill Tarter. (portrayed as Dr. Ellie Arroway in Contact). Watch the brief video introduction here:

Step 2: In brief, the idea is to consider that First Contact between humans and extraterrestrials will likely be technologically mediated. “We use technology as a proxy for intelligence, and then we go looking with various types of telescopes and detectors to see if we can find evidence that somewhere else someone or something else has used technology to modify their environment in ways that we can sense over vast distances.”

Step 3: Consider what First Contact might be like elsewhere in the universe in light of Dr. Tarter’s challenge.

Step 4: Produce a piece in music/sound that responds to the challenge.

Optional Step: There is a Facebook group for the SETI Art Imaginarium, and you might post your work for this week’s project there:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheArtImaginariumbySETI/

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0453” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0453” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of a project playlist.

Step 3: Upload your tracks. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your tracks.

Step 4: Post your tracks in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0453-dial-up/

Step 5: Annotate your tracks with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #disquietjunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.

Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Additional Details:

Deadline: This project’s deadline is Monday, September 7, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, September 3, 2020.

Length: The length is up to you. Positive introductions tend to be concise.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0453” in the title of the tracks, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Upload: When participating in this project, be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.

Download: It is always best to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).

For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:

More on this 453rd weekly Disquiet Junto project, Dial Up (The Assignment: Imagine the technologically mediated First Contact through sound), at:

https://disquiet.com/0453/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0453-dial-up/

There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.

Images associated with this project drawn from Flickr.com and used thanks to a Creative Commons license allowing for non-commercial adaptation: Read more »

Each Thursday in the Disquiet Junto group, a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership in the Junto is open: just join and participate. (A SoundCloud account is helpful but not required.) There’s no pressure to do every project. It’s weekly so that you know it’s there, every Thursday through Monday, when you have the time.

These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto):

Disquiet Junto Project 0451: Ursula’s Silences
The Assignment: Make music inspired by a line from A Wizard of Earthsea.

Step 1: In the classic fantasy novel A Wizard of Earthsea, its author, Ursula K. Le Guin, writes the following: “For a word to be spoken, there must be silence. Before, and after.” While the words are her own, of course, they are spoken not by the narrator, but by the book’s main character. The statement occurs toward the end of the book. For emphasis, Le Guin informs the reader that the character, whose name is Ged, speaks the words “slowly.”

Step 2: Consider how the statement can be applied to music, to sound, to the linear unfolding of a composition.

Step 3: Record a piece of music inspired by the Le Guin text: one sonic object at a time, with attention paid to the spaces, the silences, between those objects as they are introduced.

Seven More Important Steps When Your Track Is Done:

Step 1: Include “disquiet0451” (no spaces or quotation marks) in the name of your tracks.

Step 2: If your audio-hosting platform allows for tags, be sure to also include the project tag “disquiet0451” (no spaces or quotation marks). If you’re posting on SoundCloud in particular, this is essential to subsequent location of tracks for the creation of a project playlist.

Step 3: Upload your tracks. It is helpful but not essential that you use SoundCloud to host your tracks.

Step 4: Post your tracks in the following discussion thread at llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0451-ursulas-silences/

Step 5: Annotate your tracks with a brief explanation of your approach and process.

Step 6: If posting on social media, please consider using the hashtag #disquietjunto so fellow participants are more likely to locate your communication.

Step 7: Then listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow Disquiet Junto participants.

Additional Details:

Deadline: This project’s deadline is Monday, August 24, 2020, at 11:59pm (that is, just before midnight) wherever you are. It was posted on Thursday, August 20, 2020.

Length: The length is up to you. Remember: it’s a sentence, not a novel.

Title/Tag: When posting your tracks, please include “disquiet0451” in the title of the tracks, and where applicable (on SoundCloud, for example) as a tag.

Upload: When participating in this project, be sure to include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto. Photos, video, and lists of equipment are always appreciated.

Download: It is always best to set your track as downloadable and allowing for attributed remixing (i.e., a Creative Commons license permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution, allowing for derivatives).

For context, when posting the track online, please be sure to include this following information:

More on this 451st weekly Disquiet Junto project, Ursula’s Silences (The Assignment: Make music inspired by a line from A Wizard of Earthsea), at:

https://disquiet.com/0451/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0451-ursulas-silences/

There’s also a Disquiet Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet for Slack inclusion.