Simulations  

The Demo

"ORSON WELLES: We know now that in the early years of the twentieth century this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own. We know now that as human beings busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacence people went to and fro over the earth about their little affairs, serene in the assurance of their dominion over this small spinning fragment of solar driftwood which by chance or design man has inherited out of the dark mystery of Time and Space. Yet across an immense ethereal gulf, minds that to our minds as ours are to the beasts in the jungle, intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. In the thirty-ninth year of the twentieth century came the great disillusionment. It was near the end of October. Business was better. The war scare was over. More men were back at work. Sales were picking up. On this particular evening, October 30, the Crosley service estimated that thirty-two million people were listening in on radios."

This is the introduction for The Mercury Theatre on the Air 1938 radio broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" with this setting up the hour long broadcast some listening were told that this was a dramatized reading of the novel. Those who joined the broadcast late were left to believe that this was real. People were in fear that aliens were on earth and as this was almost a simulation like situation of how a radio might broadcast it as if it were real. The radio in the broadcast would play music to have breaking news come in with developments of the story making it seem very realistic. An idea from Jean Baudrillard's" Simulations" is Hyperreal and this term in the book is brought up when talking about Borges' map story. This idea that occurs when, "The real is produced from miniaturized units, from matrices, memory banks and command models-and with these it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times. It no longer has to be rational..."When people must have heard this and did not catch the disclaimer at the beginning then they are left to believe that this was really happening. Which is why when we were asked to create a project inspired by "Simulations" I was thinking about creating an arrangement that mixed live performance with this radio broadcast. Since I needed more time to work out some ideas for a live performance I decided to create an electroacoustic version of the introduction by Orson Welles. This has an ominous tone that I wanted to capture with sounds. I chose sounds to bring out some of the words that Welles says, by either doubling the words and copying some words that he says and altering them to highlight them. I wanted to open this up as though you were listening to the radio and had tuned in right after the disclaimer to feel what some found as fear. I kept the recording as close to the original, except some pauses I felt were too long or awkward That I took out. I felt that once Welles was introduced I wanted to take the listener to a dark place and created a drone, that is steady with a pulse that imitates a heartbeat. This drone creates a pace for the story and intensity, I felt drives the suspense of the introduction forward. Then, I chose certain words that I felt intimidate listeners like, "being watched, man, concerns, studied" these terms were meant to highlight what might make listeners feel uncomfortable. This was my attempt at creating a hyperreal performance of this broadcast and I felt happy with it so far. The plan from here on out will be coming up with sounds for a live performance that would help bring tone and shape to this piece.