There was some interesting stuff going on inside Tim Hecker’s sound at PSU tonight, but the performance was so loud I had a hard time hearing it.
Not that putting fingers or ear plugs in your ears was much help. This was the kind of loud where your clothing moves and you can feel the bass vibrating through your chest. Like that low note that blows out the window in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. High volume is a health hazard plain and simple, and I’m not sure why people would subject themselves to the experience voluntarily.
Also, the fact that the performance contains extremely loud and potentially damaging volume should be prominently featured in PICA’s materials about the show – same sort of warning to the audience that a show with extreme violence might call for. It’s dangerous, and it could make for a very adverse experience if you did not know what you were in for. If you were trapped in the middle of one of PSU’s long rows and wanted to exit but could not – the experience could be unpleasant.
When the audience is holding hands over ears and leaving during the performance – which a number of us did – that’s a good indication that it’s simply too loud.
If the essence of a performance somehow depends on the volume, that may be a sign that what’s being transmitted is not very notable. In Hecker’s music, I don’t think that’s the case, as there was some quite lovely stuff going on underneath.
But the stress of feeling completely under siege by a powerful, verging on the painful, manmade force made it hard to relax and enjoy much. There is absolutely no need for the volume to be that high, and deciding to perform and produce this work shows a disregard for the health of the audience – many of whom were young people.
In a world where so many formerly hazardous activities and substances are now known to be dangerous, noise pollution is a notable holdout. It is likely that loads of kids in that hall were vegetarians, non smokers, etc. And yet there’s a blind spot when it comes to loud noise and how bad for you it can be.
Extreme manmade noise is essentially the sound of lots of energy being consumed. It should remind us that most of the time when we hear some horrendously loud noise, not only is it a threat to the human body, it indicates some wasteful activity that could probably be done at much less cost.
Perhaps if Hecker had a visual readout above the stage of the wattage and thus pounds of coal being burned to power his performance, that would provide more context to ask how necessary the extreme volume is.
Presumably there is some sort of public safety standard regulating how loud sounds can be in a setting like a university hall. It would be interesting to know how close we were to any legal limits.
