The Reach Of Resonance (unofficial trailer)
John Luther Adams: A Sonic Geography Of Alaska
This teaser of a sequence in “The Reach Of Resonance” shows how John Luther Adams has been translating the geophysical phenomena of Alaska into music.
Jon Rose: An Aural Map Of Australia
“The Reach Of Resonance” explores (amongst many others things) the diverse ways in which certain artists have devised sonic maps which allow them to “listen” to their country, or state, as music. Just as John Luther Adams has made a musical map of Alaska which perpetually translates its geophysical forces into sound, Jon Rose has been making his own musical map of Australia through years of turning 40,000 kilometers of its fences into musical instruments.
In the process, he met musicians living on both sides of these fences creating their own musical worlds unlike any other, including a chainsaw orchestra, a singing dog, an aboriginal women’s choir, a woman who makes music from DOT Matrix printers, a man who screams into (and chews on) amplified glass, and countless others. To celebrate the discovery of this musical universe which had been effectively ignored, or obscured, by the gatekeepers of culture in Australia (and the world), Rose compiled this carnival of souls into a giant chamber orchestra, which performed at the 2005 Melbourne Festival, giving voice to the sonic map of Australia that emerged from Rose’s sonic map of the fences dividing them.
This clip of bonus material from “The Reach Of Resonance” documents Jon Rose’s journey discovering these musicians, and the “do-it-yourself” nature of music in Australia. In addition to the artists in this clip, Jon Rose has assembled a massive online archive (Australia Ad Lib) devoted to more than 200 additional unique musicians otherwise obscured from Australia’s music history: http://www.abc.net.au/arts/adlib/. Also, the fascinating Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address Jon Rose gave to shed light on Australia’s radically unique and vibrant contributions to human culture through music can be read here: http://www.newmusicnetwork.com.au/PGH/JR07.html
Jon Rose Vs. Tchaikovsky (via John Oswald)
John Oswald of Plunderphonics fame (aka Audio Piracy As A Compositional Prerogetive: plunderphonics.com) once said: “If creativity is a field, copyright is the fence.” Jon Rose plays fences as musical instruments with a violin bow. This video shows what happens when the two collaborate and even involve the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in their mischief (and general cultural terrorism).
This material was shot during production of “The Reach Of Resonance,” which features Jon Rose, but was not used in the final cut of the film.
Jon Rose In Slovakia: The Rosenberg Museum
One of the most bizarre anecdotes from production of “The Reach Of Resonance” was traveling to the remote and unsuspecting Slovakian village of Violin, where Jon Rose founded The Rosenberg Museum to preserve an encyclopedic variety of mutated “violins” invented by a dynasty of madmen who don’t actually exist. Jon in fact made them all himself and has spent the last several decades educating the public about their alleged creators, “The Rosenbergs,” through international art exhibitions, university lectures, and publishing books on the history of these mysterious perverts who are actually him. “I had to plagiarize my own work to support it,” Rose once observed. But truth becomes stranger than fiction as the Rosenbergs steer Jon’s own history in unpredictable directions around the world from wreaking anarchy in shopping malls to making marmalade out of violin cases.
Alex Ross’s observation that “Even if history can never tell us exactly what music means, music can tell us something about history,” takes on a fresh contextual veneer as the Rosenbergs present us with a musical spy hole into how history, and even our personal tastes, can be transmitted to us.
This video was made by Steve Elkins during production of “The Reach Of Resonance,” however this material was not used in the film. Some of the archival materials of The Rosenberg Museum were shot by Konstanze Binder, Andrea Horečná and Barbora Paššová.
“All The Rage”: Organizing The AB101 Veto Riot
In 1991, Bob Ostertag transcribed his recording of a gay rights riot into a notated score for performance by Kronos Quartet, titled: “All The Rage.” “The Reach Of Resonance” contains a full sequence on Kronos Quartet’s performance of this riot as a piece of music. After years of searching for anyone who had taken part in the riot, in which an estimated 10,000 people stormed the California State Building in San Francisco and set it on fire, RoR’s director Steve Elkins encountered one of the two people who actually organized the protests: Gerard Koskovich.
This clip contains part of the interview Elkins conducted with Koskovich in San Francisco in February 2010, in an effort to document the history of the riot, and the events that sparked it.
Bob Ostertag: On Orgies and the Recording Industry
“The Reach Of Resonance” is concerned with all aspects of how music affects brains, bodies, and culture. Distribution is one aspect of how we experience music, which is not explored in the film. In this clip of unused production material from “The Reach Of Resonance,” Bob Ostertag shares some illuminating thoughts on intellectual property laws.
Ostertag serves on the board of directors for QuestionCopyright.org. Their programs examine the educational and social effects of monopoly-based distribution in contrast with the potential of sharing-based audience distribution.
Their Sita Distribution Project is a public demonstration of how an artist can flourish — economically and artistically — by letting their works circulate for free. It’s not about self-distribution, it’s about audience-distribution: put the work out there, let people share it, give them the freedom to organize activities (both commercial and non-commercial) around it, and the artist will benefit, because audiences want to support artists.
Jon Rose Vs. Sydney Opera House Security
Candela Films 