By Aeron Bergman

The problem immediately evident with this project is its attempt to frame an overall world view of sound. Cage did this lightly in his (now really boring) 4'33", but it took a 5 day radio broadcast and a 2 CD set to update the same idea to the computer. There are many great sounds within the CD, of course, but I've had more intense experiences randomly flipping through satellite television. The lessons this project has to teach of "listening to the world without adding to it", have already been hammered into any young sound student for the past 50 years. Furthermore, if they wish to "listen to the world without adding to it", why are they presenting us with a 2 CD set?

How is this work "critical of the ubiquity and unseemly power of generative systems in modern decision making" when they use the very same generative system and encourage "letting go of one's own art"? (Read: letting go of one's individuality?) Ones and Zeros babble is cliché and worn in the academic and pseudo-academic world. (Not to mention the academic "light" pop press.) It is almost as tiresome as western Buddhist adepts -- they generate hoky mystic curio nick knack religion for sale in all the best California and Austria boutiques. Meanwhile they communicate with ones and zeros that "hey, there are a lot of people communicating with ones and zeros". Is there nothing more we can say with technology?

This book, and its "interdependent, temporary system of international remote sub-projects using a wide range of methods and approaches to the generation and processing of sounds and images" and the "world wide" installation it documents, is institutional naive designed to glorify muscular equipment and justify its budget. As an artistic piece, it shows practically no self-awareness in the greater scheme of the earth because it refers to enveloping terms such as "earth" "sound" and generative systems" in gross generality and arrogant pride.

"Theoretically any radio station around the world had the opportunity to listen in to the online installation of Sound Drifting." In this way, they describe all the world as their stage.

I made a silly installation in art school where I put my name in gallery lettering on the wall next to an open 6th floor window overlooking an incredibly dramatic view of downtown Manhattan. I knew how bad this piece was when I made it. Sound Drifting makes the same arrogant claim without any sense of humor or awareness of its own childlike self-centeredness.

There are a few thoughtful projects that went into the Sound Drifting project, and these tended to mimic nature while not attempting to dominate it. The sounds drift, of course. The "natural" and the "unnatural" leave their boarders and roam around inside the stereo field. Despite wanting to limit artistic individuality in favor of a faceless "community," some interesting projects were presented.

A Mic compares the human construct of war and peace with another human construct, digital one and zero, during the war and postwar Belgrade soundscape. This project was quiet and mournful, and left enough room for thought.

The Plant Room mics the environment control system in a purpose built building in Liverpool. The ambiguity of its purpose left room for wonder.

The Dunes and Redundancy project recorded four fans blowing a pile of sand into Dunes via a resolution of 3 bits frequency and innumerable bits of dynamic range. I just liked the way the fans sounded.

Several tragic projects were also presented, such as the Brighton, UK based Mecha Voices. Painfully arty, a woman's voice, nearly passing out from her own pretentiousness, tells of a scab.

The Melbourne based Fat Sized Temple was another unfortunate demonstration of the lack of inspired content many multimedia projects present with all their wide-eyed, wide-band equipment. They blend time lapse food sculpture, material from their "in house library", and some 35 mm photos for no apparent reason.

Despite several minutes of interesting sound over 2 CDs and a handful of inspired projects, the Sound Drifting experiment and its document is an over dramatic and overcooked "think-tank" of fatty proportions.