i am questionning wheter the event you mentionned is linked to another headphones event which is called 'le placard'. this year is the 7th edition and it is going to last for 95 days. you can also listen to the concerts on the web.
i participated the last three years, and its of course mostly electric devices you see. but i remember someone used an acoustic guitar last year, i dont know if a trumpet player playing in a mike would be allowed. probably, unless he plays really too loud!
what i find good about 'le placard' is that every type of music mixes in one place. you can hear anything, at 4, 5 or 8 o'clock in the morning, people come and play records of 'the cars' for one hour... and next are people playing techno with laptops. and noone disturbs noone, of course because of the headphones.
i think it is mostly organised and was actually imagined by erik minkinnen who's laptop, guitar guy based in paris

I think it's the same festival. Sounds like the Paris version is a bit more full-on than the one in London. Spoke today to a friend of mine who went to last year's festival in London and enjoyed it a lot. One thing he said, was that it allowed for a very acute listening experience that you might not get otherwise. That's fair enough I guess, but it still seems a strange premise for an event. Hopefully he'll take a look here and post his thoughts.

If there are only 100 outlets, what does the 101th person to arrive do?

"[Eastenders] happens to be an approximation of their own lifestyle, albeit one which apparently doesn't involve watching TV."

Or smiling.

"And in some bars (ones which I only ever enter once), live entertainment is replaced by MTV, often with the soundtrack provided separately by CDs on the stereo system"

I've noticed that too, and have always failed to see the point of it. It's like people at home always having the TV on, whether anyone is watching or not. I have relatives like that, it's infuriating.

"So we now have a situation where neither the presence of performer nor audience member is required for the event to occur."

Ha, great line.

[there was really no need for the "performer" to be there at all - merely the digital information present on the recorded medium is necessary for the experience to occur. So we now have a situation where neither the presence of performer nor audience member is required for the event to occur.]

I think to focus on the few people who played pre-recorded material is to exclude the larger number of people who did indeed play live (and after all, someone's gotta hit play on the minidisc, I'm glad the actual artist cares enough to come do it himself!). Their performance was immediate for the audience. To say there's no need for an audience just because they're wearing headphones, and they could listen at home on computers, seems silly. It's not as if people playing Placard don't say thank you to the people in the room.
I think in the way things were set up last year, where you could see a projected schedule of performers, and watch them setup, there was a nice 'live' feel of anticipation for what's happening now, what's happening next. As a performer myself last year, I'm certainly glad I was there in front of people!

[However, rather than de-alienate the private listening experience, it seems to me that the effect of this event will be to introduce the alienation and central control of everyday broadcast media into the performance space, and an avant-garde/experimental performance space at that]

I'd stick with the [sense of community might occur through this shared aural experience] bit, Nat!
You want to talk about alienation at an avant-garde/experimental performance space in London, attempt to visit the Red Rose pub (long-standing improv venue) as a newcomer to the scene and just try to penetrate the dingy walls and rows of solitary grey-bearded guys with pints. The Placard people are very friendly and enthusiastic; I probably encountered the friendliest door-person ever there.
Okay, you may think you're shutting out the people around you wearing headphones, but really you've got to approach a stranger, ask if you can sit next to them and plug into the extra socket on their table. And how many times have you wished you could shut out those people talking at the back of the bar (which is in another room in this venue) and actually focus entirely on the music?

Last year's London Placard was the first for the city; Paris's has been going for some time. I heard about Italy this year. Anywhere else? And last year in New York's Placard, you could show up before the live performances and listen to London's performances live. I think this kind of cross-listening is important if your festival is going global under one name.

Also important is whether the music actually applies to headphone listening. This is the key issue for me as to whether the idea of Placard is successful.

Michael, thanks for your comments. I'm one of the organisers of the festival, and I have to say, I'm perplexed by this post.

Nat, please don't take this badly, but I think you misunderstood what we're about. Let me deal with four points.

First, both events are about combining private and collective listening experience, not about private listening experience. In addition, location-based Headphones Festivals (like London and NYC last year) aim to provide an opportunity to *listen* to publicly performed music. Something that anyone in London will know is hard to do these days :)

Of course, since the thing is streamed, you can listen to the music without being present. But this is not the same as being there - and as you suggest, by not being there you miss a lot.

[Some sense of community might occur through this shared aural experience]

This is what happens. The appeal of the thing is that everyone in the room is listening to the same thing, alone and together at the same time. This is a powerful idea, in theory and in practice. If you don't believe me, ask your friend again ...

Second, ceding a little control is part of the deal by taking part in these events, you are subjecting yourself to the organisers' and the artists' taste. This is understood by anyone who goes to a concert, isn't it? If control at that level is a problem, why go to any concerts at all, in case you don't like what you hear? in fact, why not stay at home and never talk to anyone, in case they try to 'control' you?

Third, speaking of which:

[That the audience must have "brought their own headphones" to plug-in in order to participate, suggests that the organisers, should the technology be available, would be happier to broadcast the sonic information directly into the brains of the participants.]

If we could give people free headphones, we would :) Mind control is not our aim. Really.

Fourth, you misunderstand what we're asking for:

[I realised that no sounds generated from acoustic or even amplified sound sources could possibly be admitted into this festival, unless already pre-recorded.]

How does this follow? It is possible to play live and for the sound to come out via headphones. Think about it. Obviously your performance is less effective if your set is entirely accoustic with no effects or processing, but that hardly rules out all spontaneously-generated sounds, does it?

I hope that makes things a bit clearer. Obviously the best way to understand what it's about is to come along. Hope to see you there. No pressure!

A couple of points to add to Max's...

Last year we had people play music by swooshing sticks in the air (Dallas Simpson), playing guitars (Tex La Homa), tapping glass bottles (murmer), singing (bit.tonic), playing the trumpet (john eacott) and so on. This is not an 'unplugged' festival of course, but it is hardly a non-physical one. It's true that you could listen from the outside, but gained a lot by being there.

This is not an anti-social festival either. It is streamed across the Internet, but in order to receive the stream you have to register yourself as a venue so that others can come and listen to.

However, said that, there was little and generally no chatter in the performance space. The atmosphere (and therefore relationship between performer and audience) was focussed. The organisers carefully set aside a separate bar for where all the chatter took place.

I also feel you misunderstand the event, please come along and check it out this year.

I've just looked at the date for the festival and realised it's after I go to Japan for the summer. Hadn't realised when I posted, and was fully intending to come and check it out, makes it look more like a hit and run, and I'm glad you took the time to reply.

"Okay, you may think you're shutting out the people around you wearing headphones, but really you've got to approach a stranger, ask if you can sit next to them and plug into the extra socket on their table."
Much the same as sitting on a bus, no?

The cross listening thing I'd read before, but forgotten about when I posted, that's a great idea and makes much more sense of the streaming in general.

My objection to audience members having to bring headphones (regardless of practicality) was that unless people happen to be carrying them, it excludes "passing trade", something I think festivals should take advantage of if at all possible. I'd also reckon that people with crap headphones might not get the full advantage of the listening medium. Having said that, the practicalities of presenting something like this make that understandable. I'll try not to screed about fetishization and technological hierarchy.

"How does this follow? It is possible to play live and for the sound to come out via headphones. Think about it. Obviously your performance is less effective if your set is entirely accoustic with no effects or processing, but that hardly rules out all spontaneously-generated sounds, does it?"

Yes, it's possible to play live and for the sound to come out via headphones, however, the same sound will also be coming out from the instrument/speaker into the air. And unless people are wearing fully enclosed headphones with noise cancellation, they'll be able to hear that as well.

"listening is via headphones only" - if you have music that's perfectly audible without headphones, and which requires the people listening to hear the same thing from both sound sources (not that that couldn't be used creatively), that undermines the nature of the event, doesn't it?

Back to Michael, I think we'd both agree that the act of switching a mini-disc on at a performance is very different from performing live, not that mini-disc can't be used as an instrument, in its normal mode of linear playback. I've heard about European festivals booking John Wall to play his CDs "live". Never seen him live, but from what I know about his compositional method, this implies a complete misunderstanding of his process of creating music, which I understand occurs at a very-much-slower-than-real-time rate. He may well mix the CD live or something like that, it might provide opportunities for more channels than you'd get at home, but it still presents an issue whereby the organisers of that festival clearly don't understand what's gone in to making that music, since it'd seem to be that's its primary medium of communication should be the CD.

I've been involved in three, fairly high profile (in different contexts) events in the past year, one as audience member, one as performer, one as both. All of which placed the event at a much higher priority than the music being performed, to the point where music which in all cases requires concentration in order to listen to properly, became background to very loud chatter by hundreds of people, and it was impossible to sit and hear anything due to the vast numbers of people running around in circles trying to catch up with each other.

I'm very glad to see Max and Michael point out
that the bar's separate at this event, and that talking is pretty much confined to it, since this was one of my main issues with what I perceived to be a retreat from the difficulty to "*listen* to publicly performed music" in London, still think recreating a home listening environment at a venue doesn't address the fundamental issues as to why this is the case, but I'm sorry I won't be able to check it out properly.

hey

i played in a placard last saturday in paris
euipment was just installed in the staircase, outside, of a quite big 8 floor building

it was quite nice playing there with a nice weather, birds singing and people talking in the street down there, kids playing football... it made us kinda play different music i think!

originally, in paris, Placard was taking place at people's place, flat, garden, garage, that's the reason for headphones i reckon, also it was always more or less quite chaotic, three days non stop, with people spleeping here and there, others playing, some listening, some wandering about

also about technology, maybe Placard in Paris has always kept a quite low level of technology, made up boxes for sharing headphones, old computers (new computers though as well), same for years, as well as the headphones

well, probably for people here THAT really means Placard. Placard means "closet". like having concert in a closet, a bit rough

Dear friends,

What an interesting thread. As a participating artist in the London Placard, perhaps it would be helpful to present a perfomers perspective from a philosophical, conceptual and spiritual perspective.

First it is important to know that as a location performance binaural sound artist _all_ my work is recorded in pure binaural stereo and is intended for headphone listening. So for me the Placard Headphone Festival is a dream come true - a festival dedicated to presenting sound in the form for which my work was intended.

But let me backtrack a bit. Why binaural, why headphones?

Over many years I have been interested in exploring sound art as the art of sensory perception and the art of engagement. Experiential art that takes as its premise a process of maturation growth and development.

Spiritally we may regard this physical realm as the training ground for the realm of the spirit, which is our true eternal nature - the realm of eternity, the realm beyond our physical extinction, the realm of dwelling in the presence of the Godhead.

In an unfolding future, which must admit to the ever increasing advancement of civilisation, I regard artistic practise as one of the means by which we may aid this advancement. Thus, in an atmosphere of the independent search for Truth, we may engage with the world in such a manner as to increase our reverence for it, recognise the sanctity of it, and to discover myriads of wonders during our interaction with it.

Part of that interaction involves the physical liberation of sound from those entities that we discover and with which we come into contact.

This is the basis and foundation of my environmental sound art.

In this context our sense of hearing becomes the means by which we access the product of our physical engagement and interrogation - the perception and the realisation of the soundscape.

Our hearing is naturally "binaural" - with two ears, uniquely among our senses, we can hear periphonically all around us. By sampling the sound at my ears and presenting that sample to the ears of the listener on headphones, the listener can effectively "listen through my ears" and have direct access to my unique sound perception of the world around me.

This allows me to share this unique and intimate experience directly with others.

Let us now consider additional layers of this creative relationship.

Any other means of recording and transmitting my aural perception simply extends the community of collective experience, also it distributes the locus of my perception into a myriad of new locations where interactions with the unique soundscape at those location can occur. This creates a distributive mutiplication, for even if the listener is listening "in silence", the location context itself is different, and also, without any visual sensory information the personal interpretation and recognition of sound sources, the location ambience and their "meaning" (if any) is uniquely dependent on individual history.

Before I get carried away and this takes the proportion of a burdensome essay, I'll just make one more point - the importance of spatial choreography.

Spatial Chorography allows me to prepare a moving narrative, a "kinephonography". The effect of hearing motional spatial perspective and defined loci within it is profound, it enables us to correlate, like sight, our hearing directly with the physical world around us. Equally, in a creative sense we are able to choreograph sound directly in three dimensional space and this gives me the opportunity to present a personal kinephonograph of my expreience. It may be "simply pictorial", that is purely observational, or "highly contrived", either way we are extending the presentation of sound way beyond the simple presentation of a "conventional stereo mix" on headphones.

Enough!

I hope you enjoy our performance.

Vive Placard!

Dallas Simpson.

hi ,
just fell on the thread.. can answer more in detail later but .. nat if you're still in japan on the 7th & 8th of august.. there is a placard in tokyo in the yoyogi park - more details on the http://placard7.ath.cx site
- will catch up on the thread surely.
london placard was excelent this year - was happy to come up from paris - thanks to all the london placard staff & perfomers.
:e