Feel The Noise: Thomas Ankersmit’s tribute to Dick Raaijmakers

Thomas Ankersmit at the opening of Sonic Acts Academy at Stedelijk, photo by Pieter Kers
By Mateusz Mondalski Artist, theorist and composer Dick Raaijmakers is a father figure in Dutch electro-acoustic and tape music, producing something resembling acid house music back in the mid 1960s. He died in 2013, having built bridges between the realms of music and science through his work at Philip's NatLab in Eindhoven and co-founding Amsterdam's STEIM – Studio For Electro Instrumental Music. Thomas Ankersmit performed in homage to him yesterday, at the opening of Sonic Acts in Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, in the Teijin Auditorium. The room, accessed through a capsule-like vestibule, felt like entering a womb. His performance referred to Raaijmakers' fascination with loudspeakers and the byproducts of play between signal and feedback, and was performed on a Serge modular synthesizer – an analogue instrument primarily designed as a more affordable substitute for the Buchla – along with laptop, sound card and PA mixer. Ankersmit's performance was entirely analogue - he manipulated the Serge synth live and played out his recordings also produced with Serge. Spots of motoric sound opened the set, mild and soothing, but from the very beginning a barely discernible treble looms like an approaching storm. Grainy textures resembling the sound of a sewing machine emerged, and a sound that felt like listening to an engine through an earphone. Ankersmit also drew some unusual modular sounds out of the Serge: cracks of static electricity unloading on a woollen sweater. From mild beginnings, the pleasurable sonics were interrupted by a wash of irritating noise, gaining intensity up to the point where some audience members cover their ears. Some even left the room. Sounds interfered with listeners' bodies differently, depending on individual thresholds – a reference to Raaijmakers’s work. Sounds produced by Raaijmakers were often more extreme – in 1992 he burned and boiled a microphone during a performance, questioning conventional conception of legitimate instruments. Obsessed with loud speakers, he treated them as instruments – not plain transmitters. In a short conversation after the show, Ankersmit tells me that it was bizarre for him to be paying homage to Raaijmakers, as despite the small size of the Dutch scene, they never met in person. Ankersmit has lived in Berlin for 16 years, and previous to that, in New York. As a result he now feels disconnected from the Dutch scene. This lack of connection was also a blessing, as it gave Ankersmit the opportunity to address Raaijmakers without personal bias, and his soundscape last night, which was all cracks, pops and engine noises, focused on producing a sonic image of electricity at imposing and uncomfortable volume. Keeping in mind Raaijmakers' experiments with aural and electronic phenomena, it was a fitting way to honour his work.

This site uses cookies.