| Popis: |
In the early 1950s, the WDR studio founders articulated a guiding mythology: electronic music would be a timbral utopia, in which composers would finally have control over all aspects of the sound. In reality, the earliest WDR electronic works were little more than montages of radio-play sound effects. Studio technicians, working as invisible collaborators, produced the sounds, guided the technical processes, and even composed the studio’s first electronic pieces. Meanwhile, composers freely appropriated the technicians’ labor and creative ideas, thereby maintaining their authority over the studio’s first musical results. This dynamic of invisible collaboration, in which technicians provide essential tacit knowledge behind the scenes, is comparable to the culture of a scientific laboratory. As the vignettes in this chapter reveal, the WDR studio was a site for experimentation, collaborative creation, and hierarchical reappropriation. |
