I am Sitting in a Room by Alvin Lucier (1969) is a sound art performance piece. I was quite astonished by the piece in its conceptual depth and experiential consistency. Ever since I understood the concept of the project, which is the beginning of Alvin’s statement, I became really intrigued to hear what it will turn out to be.
Due to the experimental nature in a time-based experience setting, the expectation was rather evolving even though I already imagined what it would hear like in my mind. What is in my mind though, is an abstract conceptual framework that tried to image the soundscape of it, that I understood it would be more echoing, and the distinguishment of the “voice” as sound would disappear and maybe some sort of musical presentation of the voice would be there in the end. However, all these imaginations lack the power of the tangibility and direct sensory response. And that is the power of this piece. The voice turned to be more like cello from my perspective once reinforced again and again in the physical space. And the rise-and-falls of the soundwave really speaks about the abstraction of voice as sound.
For its philosophical consideration, I think it employs a mathematical methodology, which is adding oneself to its previous self. However, each time the evolving result can be described as being “multiplied” rather than added since the spatial and temporal complexity constitutes the soundscape as well. Time and space here are compressed and documented in the recording process. I think it is poetic. It is also a radical response to what is considered music and the production of music. Like Martha Joseph illustrates in Collecting Alvin Lucier’s I Am Sitting in a Room, “Indeed, the conceptual crux of the work is a radical reversal of the logic of musical composition: rather than using traditionally musical means to create sounds, Lucier used a technological process to reveal naturally occurring acoustic phenomena.” I think I am Sitting in a Room is such a masterpiece and I am in awe of it!