Alvin Lucier - I am sitting in a room (and am probably suffering)

 

Alvin Lucier’s piece “I am sitting in a room” is a constant playback of a recording back into a room in which he re-records it. He created a never-ending loop of recording and playing back the same original text, but each time it gets looped the audio becomes less clear as the listener can hear more of the audible feedback from the recording machine.

 In the beginning the listener can just hear the text of Lucier's “I am sitting in a room” but as the loop continues and plays back again and again the audio changes into a loop of feedback sounds that can be heard in the room. So, from a comforting voice reading the text out loud it changes to almost deafening feedback of the recording machine in which you cannot understand any of the original texts anymore. Lucier claims, that this way the listener will be able to hear the frequencies of the room, which are usually not audible to the human ear as it tends to be too loud around us. One could argue that the same experiment with the same recording set in a different room, will in fact produce a different piece “in the end” but it is doubtful that one really only hears the frequencies of the room or rather listens to a lot of feedback from the recording.

In the session at university, I was highly doubtful that anyone would stand to listen to the feedback loop for more than a few seconds as it definitely hurt my ears but now at home I listened to the version on YouTube which goes on for a full 45 minutes and figured out that at least for my ears it becomes more soothing to listen to as the time goes on. Interestingly enough it reaches a climax of what I personally think is the worst of the feedback that microphones can produce and then turns into a much more harmonious play of musical notes in the end. I did not expect that. It is a nice way showing how subjective listening to a piece can be, as I am sure not everyone struggled with it as much as I did.