The record of sounds (1-2/2)
Presented for the first time in 1971, "Photographs of Sounds" ("Fotografie dźwięków") was created by printing the soundtrack from film stock onto large-scale photographic paper. It would be difficult to imagine a more meaningful opening. Nothing can be heard in this work. There is a complete absence of sound. The lack of sound ensures the work is devoid of any emotional or semantic connotations.Thus, whether this is conscious or not, by introducing this element Bruszewski pursues a tradition that began with the Soviet avant-garde of Dziga Vertov and Evgeny Sholpo, and extends to, amongst others, Walter Ruttma, Daphne Oram and Michel Chion.
All were fascinated by sound and image, and experimented with film prints and the tools for optical synthesis of sound. More importantly,Bruszewski’s first work reveals his devotion to realism, which is not, as is usually the case with music, subjected to the logic of representation. Realism does not consist here in checking the congruence between a true sound and a sound reproduced on tape (or in a score), but in putting trust in the latter, in recognising its real character and investigating the various mechanisms of cognition that it creates, even and including illusion.
[M. Libera, D. Muzyczuk, Microscopes for listening. Synchronisations and desynchronisations in Wojciech Bruszewski’s sound works in Wojciech Bruszewski. Across Realities, Warsaw 2014]
