As this CD-ROM project nears to an end, I find myself looking back over the course of this work and think, "Finally, it's done!" During the course of my normal classwork as a graduate student at the iEAR Studios of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute I was approached with the prospect of Alvin Lucier coming to do a semester-long project. I was asked "Would you direct it?" It took me only a little consideration (in terms of how long I typically ponder things), to agree to whatever the project might become. There was something in the ecology of Alvin's work, the presentation of the idea in its simplest form, that spoke very deeply to me as an artist and composer. This was 1995.
At that time my knowledge of Alvin's work was primarily his now infamous "I am sitting in a room." I remembered first learning about this piece not in the basement of RPI, but rather in the basement of Clark University's electronic music studios. I heard "I am sitting in a room" and remember my friends and I immediately leaving after class with a tape recorder and microphone, and heading for what we thought would be an acoustically interesting room - the bathroom. It was the first, and perhaps only time that I've been so intrigued with a piece of music that it physically made me get up and make something myself.
After working these past two years with Alvin I've come to think about acoustics in different terms. Rather than some elusive physical commodity which the electronic music composer must harness and perhaps tame, I now think of acoustics as the medium, the tools that come with the trade, that are available for our exploration, and that, with canny invitations, can become compositions. I see Alvin as a musical seeker, finding sounds, sometimes stumbling upon them, revealling these jems in the work.
This revealling was very much the process that we witnessed at RPI during this 40 Rooms project. During my interview at iEAR with Alvin, just as we were just about to end our recording, Alvin said one of his gems, "I'm really happiest when I'm composing. Not when I'm talking about my work, or even performing, but when I'm in the process of composing." Throughout the entire 40 Rooms project, Alvin talked about what was going on in his life as a composer, telling us story after story, both about the subsequent work on 40 Rooms, about acting in avant garde theatre in the 60s, his choice of vases for an upcoming work, even sharing his 60th birthday party with us.
I was able to know Alvin personally, and to know more of his work, from pieces I'd never heard of, to others that I grew to love and listen to during the hours of transcription or tape logging, or worse yet, Director programming. Almost all of the work that went into putting 40 Rooms out was done by myself and Johnny DeKam. We came to know each other better, and both learned something of how to work collaboratively, and cooperatively. I'd come over to Johnny's studio and he'd be listening to Clocker, or Music on a Long Thin Wire, which often acted as the medium, the acoustic through which we completed our work. During our frequent work breaks we would sometimes discuss the project, but often we'd simply talk with each other about whatever seemed important in our lives. On long nights at the studio we would sit with one pair of hands editing video, the other compressing digital video files. Some nights would be Johnny making beautiful graphics, and me tirelessly editing text. Perhaps the best collaboration we found was through coding Lingo, where my hands were on the Director manual as Johnny would be looking under the interactive help for the right script.
For me, each step of this project was something new. From setting up and directing a video shoot, to on-line video editing, and ultimately learning how to put together a CD-ROM. At each step we learned as we went, which often meant doing something not only twice, but sometimes three or more times. As we came to know our technical tools, we came to know Alvin, and mostly we came to know each other, becomming known affectionately as the "Lucier twins" as this project grew and grew and grew, to a bigger, and more time-consuming project.
40 Rooms gave us the rare opportunity to work closely with Alvin Lucier and Christopher Jaffe and experiment with them using the LARES system as a real-time performance environment. More than that, through Crhistopher Jaffe's invitation, we were able to have composers, visual artists, engineers, architects and video makers working together to experiment with sound with one of best.
There is something newly beautiful about listening to "I am sitting in a Room." When I hear it I think about the intense look that must have been on Alvin's face during the recording of it, the furrowed brow and focused eyes. And then the familiar smile and quick laugh that must have followed just after the tape recorder was turned off. There must have been a glancing nod of yes, followed by "I think that works, let's go out and get some lunch."
Donna McCabe 1997