I Am Sitting in a Room
| I am sitting in a room | |
|---|---|
| by Alvin Lucier | |
| Genre | Process |
| Language | English |
| Composed | 1969: Brandeis University |
| Performed | 1970: Guggenheim Museum |
| Recorded | 1969: Electronic Music Studio at Brandeis |
I am sitting in a room (1969) is one of composer Alvin Lucier's best known sound art works.
The piece features Lucier recording himself narrating a text, and then playing the tape recording back into the room, re-recording it. The new recording is then played back and re-recorded, and this process is repeated. Since all rooms have characteristic resonance or formant frequencies (e.g. different between a large hall and a small room), the effect is that certain frequencies are emphasized as they resonate in the room, until eventually the words become unintelligible, replaced by the pure resonant harmonies and tones of the room itself.
In his book on the origins of minimalism, Edward Strickland wrote that "In its repetition and limited means, I am sitting in a room ranks with the finest achievements of Minimal tape music. Furthermore, in its ambient conversion of speech modules into drone frequencies, it unites the two principal structural components of Minimal music in general."
Lucier was originally inspired to create I am sitting in a room after a colleague mentioned attending a lecture at MIT in which Amar Bose described how he tested characteristics of the loudspeakers he was developing by feeding back audio into them that they had produced in the first place and then was picked up via microphones.
The first recording of I am sitting in a room was made at the Electronic Music Studio at Brandeis University in 1969.
The first performance of the work was in 1970 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
A second, higher fidelity recording of I am sitting in a room lasting over 40 minutes was released in 1981.
More recent performances include one at MIT's "Seeing/Sounding/Sensing" symposium in September 2014.
Lucier said that a performance need not use his text, and that the performance may be recorded in any room.
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