Oramics - Precedents, Technology and Influence

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ContextElectronic music has made a dramatic impact on our sound world. Academic analysis of this revolution is well under way. There is also a considerable constituency of lay people - listeners as well as musicians - who are knowledgeable, and hunger to learn more, about how this came about: the technologies, the techniques, the people who made it happen. Britain was an important crucible for new musical devices and artistic forms, but this 'local history' requires focussed studies to bring to academic and public attention the precise circumstances under which electronic music developed here. Any list of such studies will inevitably include Daphne Oram (1925 - 2003), pioneer of musique concrete and first founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. After leaving the BBC in 1959, Oram devoted herself to freelance music composition and the development of a unique device, the 'Oramics Machine' to actualise her musical ideas. Her collected papers and recordings were acquired by Goldsmiths College in 2006. The Collection generates international interest amongst academics, practitioners, industry and the general public. It has been the subject of magazine articles, commercial CD releases, short films, three exhibitions, radio documentaries (one for BBC Radio 3), a symposium, and concerts at the South Bank and the Roundhouse, London.In January 2008, the original 1960s Oramics Machine - a unique and idiosyncratic audio-visual device for composition and sound synthesis, which had been thought lost or destroyed, was located by the Director of the Oram Collection. It was later purchased by the Science Museum so that it could be conserved, stored and displayed to international standards. The Museum and the College have signed a long term research collaboration agreement in which each is the other's partner of choice in research and exploitation of the Oramics Machine, with the aim of producing greater value to both the research community and the general public. In this partnership, the Museum's historical and conservation expertise complements that at Goldsmiths, which is musicological and technical. AimsThis project aims to closely study the Oramics Machine and the Oram Collection. Understanding its genealogy is essential to grasping Oram's significance in the history of British electronic music and her impact on later music. The audio-visual roots of her practice with the Machine is known in outline only; the precise links between her musical aesthetic and its antecedents in avant garde music have not been traced in detail; and the origins of the Machine's hybrid electro-mechanical and electronic implementation are only dimly understood. The project will ask: How can close analysis of the surviving Oramics Machine inform understanding of its workings and evolution? What were the Oramics Machine's antecedents in postwar electronics, music and photophonic and film art? What contribution did the Oramics Machine make to the electronic and computer music, in terms of both technique and creativity? What is its cultural impact and legacy?In what ways is the Oramics Machine unique? Why did others not adopt this approach to electronic music synthesis and composition?What kinds of historical account can make valid connections between Daphne Oram's gender and personality on one hand and the form of the machine and her musical output on the other?Applications and benefitsNot only will the project produce a PhD and verbal and published papers, it will also contribute to the Science Museum's major gallery project, 'Making Modern Communications', which will include displays on the impact of electronics on our sound world, and which will show the Oramics Machine itself within displays to which the student will contribute. The project will also feature concerts and symposia for public audiences.