About
Welcome
The Orange Hut studio is a sound design/sonic research facility operating out of the South East of the United Kingdom (UK), who supports the 10:10 initiative.
Why?
Why orange?
Well… First and foremost… The name has nothing whatsoever to do with a major mobile telephone service provider that operates here in the UK and across Europe. Rather it denotes the idea of purity, emptiness and the impossible within the possible, as symbolized by the color orange in the Buddhist traditions…
Secondly, the name was, in part, derived from Dr Alex Paterson’s original studio lab where the initial ideas for the mighty ambient dub collective known as the Orb, were forged.
And thirdly… It’s Karl’s favorite fruit.
Why choose the medium of sound as a form of artistic expression?
As philosophical and scientific enquiry all seem to demonstrate, the universe is made up of energy… Some of this energy is condensed into matter i.e. atoms, molecules, proteins, etc… While some of it is simply energy in various states of radiative emission: for example light, who’s photons are much too small to notice any mass they might have, and yet we can still see the effect they have on a darkened room clearly.
Despite these minor variances, all this energy vibrates at specific frequencies across the broad-range electromagnetic-energy-spectrum, and it is these very vibrations, which, when they interact with one another, present the most beautiful tapestries of advantage and interference. It is these advantages and interferences that we are ultimately interested in, as we have always felt they provide a natural likeness to the way everything interconnects and interacts in a long line of events.
So we felt a natural allure for an art form that demanded a good knowledge of wave synthesis, and which also provided a low enough frequency range within which to work and observe any interference patterns, so that we might engineer and deduce the method behind these patterns as they occurred within designated time frames. In doing this we have been reminded of a metaphoric parallel that runs between these patterns and the ever changing flow of all dynamical systems. On top of this, we also had to consider the fact that we needed to be able to easily and accurately isolate individual frequencies from the whole, so that we might mix them into specific patterns based on an exact science, rather than as roughly mixed hues of subjectively chosen colors like a painter might do upon his palette.
Thus it was an obvious and instinctive choice to choose musical form and sonic art over any type of visual articulation.
Why do we support 10:10?
Because we are concerned about the impact that we – as a studio – are having on the world around us. Making a start on reducing our own carbon footprint is the first key step to reducing carbon emissions globally. After all, there is no better place to begin change than at home. On top of this, we will also be cutting our own costs… And cutting costs means more cash in the bank.
In time we believe this effort will lead to other important changes, allowing society to think about and develop a sustainable, cleaner and greener future for us all… One that might perhaps be free from fossil fuels altogether. Thus we are becoming mindful of our actions at work to counter any unnecessary waste of energy or resources, so as to lead by example.
As Albert Einstein once said, “Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means.”
What We Do
Having been educated in the recording and sonic arts, as well as possessing a genuine and deep interest in this multifaceted artistic platform, we have become very keen to express the dynamic incidents of Life’s patterns in their truest sense i.e. by using non-linear algorithmic motifs to extrapolate and relay Nature’s own seemingly lawless deluge of biological uncertainty. At the same time, through this scientific mode of expression, we are developing our own understanding of ‘patterns’ and ‘dynamical systems’ via computational, mathematical and philosophical experimentation and extrapolation. This ardent desire to arrange and craft novel, chaotic soundscapes is made all the more possible with the vast array of specialized audio/computer processing equipment that the Orange Hut studio has amassed over recent years; equipment which allows us to perform all of the multifarious modes of sonic recording, reproduction, manipulation, synthesis and refinement to as high a level as any professional recording studio could.
In a similar vein… Here at the Orange Hut we lean towards novel ideas regarding sound synthesis and sonic arrangements, rather than simply relying on the standard recording techniques and compositional theories that many still use. We believe in that fine fractal line between self-similarity and exact replicas. And thus, while the majority choose to play the same old games within standardized musical frameworks of predefined genres, we are more interested in removing any constricting methodologies. We desire no part in institutions that seek to exclude or define. Rather we like to move freely within the ’set’ in which these sub-units reside.
Thus… While pre-recorded sounds might adequately emulate what one should hear in relative reality, very rarely does this ‘mode’ of aural reproduction do anything other than simply ‘replicate.’ And while ‘copying’ and/or ‘emulating’ sounds might be enough for some… We prefer to remove that real-world recognition that our minds have become so familiar with, and deploy/explore new timbral analogies that might fit more poignantly to, say, a musical composition, or perhaps to better compliment a film’s visual texture.
With these analogies in place we hope to tease new feelings from one’s imagination, breaking the binds of normal recognition, thereby forcing the listener to re-evaluate what they have just heard, as well as re-equate the context in which they have experienced it.
In order to do this, we have become well versed in using some of the latest innovations in sound design hardware and software. So rather than simply mixing two sounds together i.e. via amplitude and EQ adjustments, we can spectrally mix their tonal properties into new blends of sonic color that might paint unknown aural landscape never before heard.
Mathematics and algorithmic expression play more of a role here than any musician ever could or should. We prefer to leave things to chance, so that they are governed by the same probabilistic laws that “God, or Nature” uses to guide its own structural design and flow. Essentially we are looking to return to the source, to understand fundamental principles of being… Being that is free from mankind’s own self-imposed and ego-centric understanding… Free from bourgeois certainty. Thus math and chaos reign supreme through our ideals! There are no taboos or set ways of thinking here! Abstractions work better to free our minds from the preconditioning and set-forms that we have all be taught to express ourselves with… For us, these taut/taught and limiting forms are only a hindrance to our goals for artistic expression.
Chaos as seen within a Strange Attractor
But rest assured that we will not be prone to meander in absurdities… While we might allow chance and chaos to spill into our creations, we are also very aware of their workings and, along with a good understanding of wave theory and sound reproduction, we understand the limits of what can be painted upon this atmospheric canvas. Thus we are able to construct solid platforms from which to launch our projects from, so that they are propelled with a focused ‘aim’ towards their target in the surrounding seas of endless, varied probability. This in turn means we are able to avoid complete and utter incoherent randomness, which might ’sometimes’ work against the merits of one’s creative flow.
So we are not madmen thrashing blindly through vast arrays of accidental abstractions, hoping, by chance, to find some ultimate expression of the divine in an endless sea of probabilistic odds… Rather we are scientists of sound, who have firmly grasped the implications of the chaos inherent within non-linear dynamical systems, so that we might use them as creative tools, rather than forces of destruction.
By gorging ourselves on the works of scientists like Dennis Gabor, Edward Lorenz, Steven Smale, Harry Swinney, Jerry Gollub, Maurice Marie Alfred Couette, Otto Rössler, Jules Henri Poincaré, Michel Hénon, David Ruelle, Mitchell Feigenbaum, Paul Stein, Robert McRedie May, Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor, Benoît Mandelbrot, Gaston Julia, Georg Cantor, Kurt Gödel, Ludwig Boltzmann, et al… we have been able to precisely roll with this ‘flow.’
With these paradigms in mind, the name of our preferred game is ‘evolution of the audible form.’
Here we rest on the cutting edge of a novel communion… A communion between an somewhat unlikely duo: that of science and artistic expression. Here we channel directly that which the artist has felt a need to express since the dawn of human understanding i.e. the wonder and splendor of all creation. Except now, within this golden age of Technology, Knowledge and Scientific enquiry, we are able to weave it’s essence into a highly refined and symbolic ideal of dactylic flow. This flow is the poetry of the numbers and energetic frequencies that we all vibrate with, that we use daily in our collective dance of Life. Here at the Orange Hut we fuse logic and art into a supreme tool for expressing perceptive forms, ideas and modes, in a way where we are able to leave the confines of words and man made structures, so that we might launch head first into uncharted “oceans of sound” to find new islands of allegory and analogy.
As Albert Einstein once said, “Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.”
And here we set ourselves adrift upon the sea of patterns to investigate commonplace cycles of nature’s own ebbs and throws, so that we might relay them back, via the medium of sound, to the human senses, creating a type of “feedback loop” to provide a deeper, clearer view of the intrinsic, ordered beauty that lies behind chaos’ endless, enigmatic flow…
Written by Karl Richard 01/06/2009
