We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

I Am Sitting in a Cloud

by MrDougDoug

/

  • Streaming + Download

    Purchasable with gift card

     

1.
I Am Sitting in a Cloud 21:17
download

about

Catalog#: BLORP18
Art by Max.

MrDougDoug reinterprets Alvin Lucier's canonical sound art composition "I Am Sitting in a Room" (1969), re-constructing Lucier’s text with sampled voices from pop songs sourced from YouTube. While Lucier’s version exploits the hidden acoustic characteristics of a physical space by recording and re-recording his voice, MrDougDoug reveals the inherent impurities of cloud compression algorithms by uploading, downloading, re-sampling, and re-uploading files to low quality audio hosting platforms thousands of times over.

"While in graduate school, I took a class called Control, Interpretation, and Ownership of the Sonic Arts. The class dealt with musical scores that eschew standard notation in favor of prose, diagrams, and other radical processes – questioning ideas of ownership over drastically different interpretations of these ambiguous scores.

I started the project as a formal exercise to keep myself entertained. What began as a simple troll became intriguing when I thought about it in the context of that class. Further discussions with Nic Collins – who was a student of Lucier – convinced me to push the project, saying 'Lucier would absolutely hate this.'

Initially, I was processing the sampled prose as Lucier instructs – running it into a room, recording, and re-recording the audio to reveal and reinforce the resonant frequencies of the space. I was disappointed with the results: finding them to be too similar to the original version. Going back to the drawing table, I thought about Lucier’s entirely analog process and mulled over ways to enact the piece digitally. Considering Lucier’s desire to “[open] that secret door to the sound situation that you experience”, I thought about the various states of compression each individual sample had already undergone simply by being sourced from fan-made YouTube lyrics videos. Transmuting the recycling process to low quality audio hosting platforms revealed an entirely new ‘sound situation’ hidden in the files from the onset."

- Doug Kaplan

“I Am Sitting in a Cloud” was realized by MrDougDoug in 2017 at Randall, the SAIC facilities, and on Kiawah Island. Special shout out to Nic Collins, Max, and my family. The first iteration appears on Pepper Mill Rondo’s 2018 album E.D.M.

credits

released March 23, 2023

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Blorpus Editions image

Blorpus Editions Chicago, Illinois

it's music, babyyyy

label curated by Max Allison, established 2022.

in the peripheral orbit of Allison's label with Doug Kaplan called Hausu Mountain

contact / help

Contact Blorpus Editions

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like I Am Sitting in a Cloud, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Fabiana Palladino stops by to talk about her mesmeric debut LP.
listen now