Reasons for the Occurrences of Synthesized Referential “Real-World” Sounds “Outside” of Electroacoustic Music Concert Hall

I will present my examination on influence of technology and context on the meaning of sounds. In particular the question: why did in the 1960s the first occurrences of synthetic sounds referencing natural real-world sounds (such as bird-calls) appeared outside of the frame of the electroacoustic music concert? I will focus on two historic examples: the Mixturtrautonium of Oscar Sala as used in the soundtrack of the Hitchcock movie The Birds, and David Tudors’ electrical sound circuits in Rainforest 1. The specific questions I aim to answer are as follows: (1) did synthesizers usher in new ways of understanding imitations of “real world” sounds? (2) In what manner did the mode of presentation itself, namely, the film- soundtrack and the sound installation, support the interpretation of sounds as imitation in the two examples cited? We describe the dependency of the meaning of an imitational reference on the materiality of the instrument and extra-musical conditions of the works where they are used in. Peirce provided a formal system to describe semiosis, which he also defines as sign- activity. With his categories of modes of reference, which he defines in his speculative grammar on the elements of semiosis, he introduced concepts how signification can be differentiated. In a first step he introduced a classification, which distinguishes between icon, index and symbol. I will apply this categorization on the semiosis of sounds in artistic expressions. I am following Peirce in the idea, that semiosis is a triadic, time-bound, context-sensitive, interpreter-dependent, materially extended dynamic process. My argument is based on the assumption, that signs are multi-stable, which means it is inherent to a sign, that it can always be read in different ways and that it is the context of a sign, which provides the necessary stability to the multiplicity of possible interpretations. I will first look what synthesizers introduce new to the interpretations of sounds as imitations of real-world sounds. How they problematize the relation between sound and source. And how we can describe, that this relationship also affects interpretation of sounds as imitations. I will then look how context introduces a multi-modality, that has the potential to stabilize possible interpretations. I conclude, that synthesizers, compared to acoustic instruments, introduced a more complex relationship between sound and its reality, and that explicit inclusion of context through multi- medial contextualization introduce a stabilization of the meaning through multi- modality. Following this I argue, that imitation changed its position in artistic expression, and that the imitation of real- world sounds with synthesizers exemplify well the interrelations between iconic, indexical and symbolic interpretation of signs, their context-dependency and situatedness.