Talk:I Am Sitting in a Room

Comments
Does anyone know when this was done? --130.243.79.252 17:46, 28 July 2005 (UTC)


 * In Paul Morley / Strictly Kev's updated version of Raiding the 20th Century ( http://www.ubu.com/sound/dj_food.html ), you can hear Alvin say at 24:25 "And then I did, 'I'm sitting in a room', in 1969". Despite consultation with the Rt20thC sources list, I cannot determine where this sample is sourced from. There is a "new" version which is based on the same principles, just using digital video codec. It should be mentioned and is to be found on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icruGcSsPp0  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.178.227.129 (talk) 00:51, 21 November 2010 (UTC)


 * As far as when it was done goes, there were at least 1969 and 1981 recordings. I added links to videos on Vimeo and YouTube of these two recordings (the Vimeo one with interpretive visuals), but they were swiftly removed due to the video posters not owning the copyright to the audio.  I did think about that before adding the links, but I thought Professor Lucier would actually probably be in favor of his work being kept alive, and if copyright policing is to be done, it should be done by the copyright holder with DMCA takedown notices on Vimeo and YouTube, not on Wikipedia, where the links add to the understanding of the topic quite a bit.  However, I see that Wikipedia does not-too-surprisingly have a policy against linking to copyright violations.  I might point out that having the full "lyrics" to this piece in the article is a more direct violation of copyright.  Oh well, people can find the videos with Google.  In "See also", I added a link to the modern tribute "VIDEO ROOM 1000" mentioned by 85.178.227.129.  --Dan Harkless (talk) 07:40, 18 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I Love this artwork... enough to look up a few refs, in case someone wants to add the refs.
 * 1969 first ref
 * 1969: second ref
 * 1970: seems out of line with above refs
 * 1981 recording release?
 * My money is on 1969, with a recording release in 1981.HappyValleyEditor (talk) 07:51, 18 March 2016 (UTC)


 * No, the 1969 recording is different from the 1981 one, as can be heard in the (apparently unauthorized) video links I tried to add to the article. The latter has higher fidelity, and the room resonances therefore come on more smoothly and arguably more pleasingly to the ear.  BTW, I see you removed the link I added to the "VIDEO ROOM 1000" YouTube tribute in "See also".  You don't think that's appropriate to the article even in an "In popular culture" section?  --Dan Harkless (talk) 08:03, 18 March 2016 (UTC)


 * In a section of popular culture references is a good idea. I took out the ref because Youtube refs are low on the reliability scale in terms of the article subject. It's late, but I am a serious fan of this piece and will be back to improve int in the coming days. There are certainly dozens of references and sources available for this, perhaps hundreds. I'm not sure why the article only has four sources and so little information. I notice that there is mention of Lucier perfoming the work and recording the work, so that will have to be addressed in the article. Until then, happy editing.HappyValleyEditor (talk) 08:14, 18 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Okay, I'll re-add the "VIDEO ROOM 1000" mention in a new "In popular culture" section. I do think it's deserving of a mention, as the creator of the video is obviously a a true fan of Lucier's original, and his video updates the idea for a modern audience in featuring digital artifacting of audio and video, vs. the old analog artifacting of audio.  --Dan Harkless (talk) 08:22, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Capitalization
This article needs to decide on whether it is "I am Sitting in a Room", or "I am sitting in a room"... - furrykef (Talk at me) 17:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

According to my copy of the Lovely Music release of the CD as well as various websites, including http://alucier.web.wesleyan.edu/works.html, the title has only the first word (I) capitalized. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.105.113.246 (talk) 18:11, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Well I think the capitalization is silly and should be shot. Pyxzer (talk) 22:15, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Requested move 19 March 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Clear consensus on this. Andrewa (talk) 08:10, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

I Am Sitting in a Room → I am sitting in a room – Correct capitalization as per talk page consensus and article references. Psiĥedelisto (talk) 06:36, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 14:26, 19 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I do not concur that this is an uncontroversial move nor do I recognize the stale discussion at Talk:I Am Sitting in a Room as having reached a consensus to move this otherwise stable, (since 2004), title to the unconventional capitalization it is stylized as in primary sources. I'd like to see it discussed further in a requested move.--John Cline (talk) 08:26, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * queried move request Anthony Appleyard (talk) 14:26, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose per MOS:CT. In contrast to the barely-touched-upon exchange above, see the lengthy discussion regarding this general topic which envelops virtually the entire page at Talk:A Boy Was Born. &mdash;Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 16:04, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment: Only one person, an ISP, has claimed that the title should be lowercase based on two examples, the CD cover and the composer's website. No support has been provided from Wikipedia policy or practice, and the move request provides no support. According to WP:NCM, "Generic names of compositions are capitalized in article titles on a single composition," "Always when the generic name is part of an English-language non-generic article title". Hyacinth (talk) 16:10, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment: One could argue that MOS:CT supports a lowercase title: "If a work is known by its first line of text and lacks a separate title, then the first line, rendered in sentence case, should be used as its title." Hyacinth (talk) 16:17, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose songs etc. in French don't have noun capitalization, those in English do. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:33, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose per MOS:CT. —BarrelProof (talk) 17:37, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose. MOS:CT applies, the capitalization on the CD is irrelevant. Darkday (talk) 18:13, 21 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Mary Lucier's Polaroid Slide Series
Mary Lucier's piece is a separate work, stop editing this article to say that "I Am Sitting in a Room" includes both the visual and audio components and was created by both. See the following sources which all treat the two works as distinct.

"(1969) for voice and electromagnetic tape [15:32] (original short version), text-based score. First performed in the Guggenheim Museum, New York City in 1970 and originally accompanied by Mary Lucier's Polaroid Slide Series."

"Like Reich, [Alvin Lucier] went directly to human speech for the tape piece that remains his best-known work, I am sitting in a room, composed in 1970. It was first performed on May 25th of that year at the Guggenheim Museum in tandem with Mary Lucier's (Alvin Lucier's wife) Polaroid Image Series. The aural and visual works both explored the process of decay of an image in serial reproduction."

"Before that, landscape was something [Mary Lucier] became involved with indirectly, in the process of making a group of works called the "Polaroid Image Series" (1969-1974). Begun in 1969 as a collaboration with the composer Alvin Lucier, and based on his composition for voice and tape, I am sitting in a room, each "Image Series" copied and recopied an original photograph over multiple generations. "Slight errors in alignment, dirt accumulation, minute reflections, and the simple interaction of light and optics," Lucier has written recently, "produced an ever-changing and often unpredictable landscape in which the original image was completely transformed many times over.""

"While the main emphasis of the exhibition was on projected film and mixed-media works, it did include four works by Mary Lucier made in slide projection. One of these works, Polaroid Image Series (1970–74) was her response to the voice and tape work I Am Sitting in a Room (1969) made by her husband, the experimental composer Alvin Lucier. The slide images used the same methods as the voice composition where images are copied, recopied and repeated; and in its presentation in this exhibition they play simultaneously (Iles 2001)."

"This example is all the more apropos here because, as it happens, the work already has a "visual analogue": that is, Mary Lucier's series of Polaroid snapshots that was directly inspired by her husband's music. Although these photographs in themselves make a rather poor analysis of I am sitting in a room (unsurprisingly, since they were never intended as such), they do help explain how easily the idea and realization of Alvin Lucier's piece can be conceived of in the visual domain. By taking a photo of the first photo (of the chair in the room in which her husband sat when he made his original recording), then taking a photo of the photo of the photo, and so on, Mary Lucier introduced a slight error of size at each copy, so that the image gradually enlarged and move off the picture: "There was a dark shadow behind the lamp which grew on each reproduction, until finally the fifty­-second one is completely black; the shadow behind the lamp grew until it took up the whole image.""

Even Mary Lucier's own website treats the two works as distinct with separate creators: "Polaroid Image Series, digital installation version, 2008 A four-channel synchronous video/sound installation accompanied by Alvin Lucier's I am sitting in a room. Black and white. Sound. 23:00, continuous."

And Alvin Lucier's book you cite (Chambers p. 30) clearly says "I Am Sitting in a Room" (1969) is for voice and electromagnetic tape, i.e., it is a piece of sound art, not multi-media.

The "History and performances" section currently has the line The first performance of the full, collaborative work was in 1970 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.[6] With Mary Lucier, the performance featured projections of Polaroid images that had been degraded like the voice.[7] If you would like to further discuss Mary Lucier's related work, here would be the section, but it would be incorrect to say she was a co-creator of the sound art (not multi-media) work "I Am Sitting in a Room" which was Alvin Lucier's alone. Please stop edit warring and going against published, secondary (non-interview) sources. CC and  who have also had to revert your edits. Umimmak (talk) 12:21, 28 June 2020 (UTC) [Update 12:59, 28 June 2020 (UTC)]


 * You are incorrect. As Alvin himself states in 'Chambers' (book, 1980) "When Mary did the visual part, she took a Polaroid snapshot of the chair that I sat in when I made the tape and subjected it to a copying process in which she copied the original, copied that copy, and so on."   The work 'I am sitting in a room' was premiered as a mixed media piece by Alvin and Mary Lucier. It is essential that the correct history of the piece is included and it does not in any way distract or reduce the reputation of the solo version by Alvin. To remove Mary's part in the origins of the art work (as an exhibition in 1970 & its most resent staging) is to continue a patriarchal distortion of art history for no valid purpose.


 * Further; when you say that 'Mary Lucier's piece is a separate work' you seem to fail to understand that it became a separate piece, as Alvin's part did but that only reinforces the fact that they were both parts of the original, premiered & named piece 'I Am Sitting In A Room'. I would add that although Alvin's part has been performed a handful of times since 1970, Mary's has only rarely been shown, and she always mentions Alvin's part in the creation or its original concept as a collaborative work.


 * Both Alvin and Mary, and indeed MoMA (who own the original materials) are now aware of the situation of the removal of these positive and factually correct edits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JrFedit (talk • contribs) 12:49, 28 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I hope you don't mind I took the liberty of moving your comment so it's easier to keep track of the conversation. You mention MoMA, but the MoMA page for this work also says Medium: Sound installation, and © 2020 Alvin Lucier, so I'm not sure what the purpose of that was. Umimmak (talk) 13:10, 28 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment. One thing that strikes me about JrFedit's statement is the quotation from Alvin Lucier that Mary "took a Polaroid snapshot of the chair that I sat in when I made the tape". This undermines the idea that Mary had something to do with the origins of the piece, since it clearly implies that the Polaroid Image Series was first conceived only after the tape had been completed. I see no evidence being offered that the visual work was a part of the original conception. It seems plain that it was added on later. Nothing wrong with that, and certainly there is nothing wrong with including discussion of the combined works but, so far, I see no support for the notion that Alvin Lucier did not come up the the idea for the audio piece entirely on his own.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:33, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

′′′comment′′′ there is a wide ranging discussion around this situation elsewhere now. I should add at this point that I am a sound artist myself with over 4 decades of experience including as a curator, lecturer and artist. There are several key issues including one pivotal one; after the 1970 premiere a patriarchal art world gave Alvin the opportunity to perform and become known for the solo version of the piece. Had there not been problems of sexism (and of course the separation and later divorce of Alvin and Mary) in the arts the piece would have remained known as being a collaborative piece when first exhibited in the wider knowledge of it. Both artists might have chosen to exhibit / perform the individual elements separately but 'I am sitting in a room' would, as it should still, be known as a mixed media piece on its first public outing (by the way, the mention of Mary in the 1970 performance was placed there by me & is one of the few edits that has remained intact). The argument that because Alvin performed the solo version more often after 1970 does not and should not alter the factually correct and inclusive history of the piece. The 'for voice and tape' 'score' was written out well after the 1970 performance and, is was common for a large number of similar mixed media works the visual element was not notated in such scores. If one compares that 'score' to the notes from the premiere performance it states 'I Am Sitting In A Room' Alvin Lucier, Mary Lucier and details the use of voice, magnetic tape and projections. Further Whilst Alvin was experimenting with the sound aspect he was also working with Mary on the piece, as it became titled, as stated by them both, as a collaboration stemming for those experiments. The comment about the chair image proving anything is problematic as it assumes the images used were the first ones taken. Mary Lucier was / is an artist in her own right and the story of her work on the piece shows a process not, as the said comment implies, some sort of 'tag on' role. In summing up the entire point of trying to correct this page (for what its worth wiki does have a massive problem with significant patriarchal bias across the arts, and indeed other subjects, even to the point of female artists being removed from the pages of art forms they originated) is to fully represent the history & like it or not the art work 'I am sitting in a room' was presented by Alvin and Mary Lucier as a single work, not as two separate works, at its premiere in 1970. Arguing that subsequent performances by Alvin alone define the work is literally allowing the history to be rewritten. For some it might be important to allow Alvin or certain academics to decide if the work was entirely his before, during and after the 1970 performance but that isn't how art history should ever been represented and there are concerted efforts across the arts now to correct such distortions that don't do anything to damage the reputations of the male artists but simply seek to detail the full facts. The prime source on the work is its 1970 premiere (and its 2019 re-staging) and after that there should be, at least, equity in allowing the artists themselves to define the piece and as mentioned both have stated, clearly, that the piece was a collaboration. There is however a bigger issue here; having Mary's involvement allowed its correct place in the piece acts as a powerful sign of how art history should reflect the facts, not the selective facts based on any advantages afforded to one artist over another due to systemic prejudices. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JrFedit (talk • contribs) 22:36, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
 * OK, so "Whilst Alvin was experimenting with the sound aspect he was also working with Mary on the piece, as it became titled, as stated by them both". All we need to know is where did they say this? The first performance, as I understand things, was in 1969 and was of the audio version only. I can easily believe that a husband and wife might discuss in some detail a project before it was even begun, and those discussions might have included the idea of a multi-media version, but the key word is "might". Wikipedia requires reliable sources. If you have got some, then please bring them forward.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:54, 28 June 2020 (UTC)


 * to reply to Jerome Kohl's comment; 1) the 1969 reference is to a section of a test recording not a 'performance'. Its hard to keep arguing about this because it seems you are reading Alvin's comments about the 1969 recording as if he was stating that was already 'the work'. In terms of the references you request they are already there on the wiki page including in Alvin's words. The art work 'I am sitting in a room' was premiered in 1970 at the Guggenheim - that word, premiered matters because it denotes the first time the artists considered the piece ready for public performance. 2) whilst Alvin was working with voice and tape in '69 he recorded lots of different experiments. They weren't 'pieces' at that stage in the same way as any composer / artist works; they might give the piece a working title & that working title might be what becomes the actual title or it might not. One reason for me contacting Alvin and MoMA on this is to confirm what I already know which is that none of the tapes from those '69 sessions include the title 'I am sitting in a room', most simply have a date & take number etc. 3) As has been referenced Alvin & Mary worked on the piece as a collaboration in preparation for its premiere in 1970. My 'further idea' (below) is worth reading to illustrate the point here. I'll add to it this; imagine that we didn't have then (& now) a patriarchal society & in 1970 Mary & Alvin Lucier had premiered 'I am sitting in a room' & then imagine a wiki page is created for it that doesn't mention Alvin's part at first. It details Mary's work with degraded images and distortion of images throughout the 60's as proof that the piece was her idea and that 'Alvin Lucier created an accompaniment for Mary's images using a similar approach with voice and tape' Some time later someone writes 'Mary Lucier's piece accompanied by images by her husband' & that 'Alvin was merely Mary's partner'. I guarantee you & lots of other people would be demanding Alvin be given credit as one of the two artists who premiered their collaborative piece. There are only 2 people who know the exact time line of the collaboration, Alvin and Mary, and both chose to state that the piece was a collaboration. 4) Alvin has performed a version separately since that 1970 premiere & chose to call it by the same name. Mary has only very occasionally shown any of the work in the polaroid series and when that includes the images from that performance she chose to call them 'room'. Both considered the performance in 2019 as only the 2nd time the 'full piece' has been performed / exhibited. As I said earlier the 'further idea' (below) would be the factually correct, respectful and important way to document this work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JrFedit (talk • contribs) 23:15, 29 June 2020 (UTC)


 * please sign you comments on talk pages by ending them with four tildes: ~, and indent your comments below the text you're responding to, thank you.


 * Wikipedia is not a place to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS; we need to follow the consensus among reliable, secondary (again, non-interview) sources. Maybe future scholarship will change, but it's premature to make all of these edits until there is a consensus among secondary sources which says "I am sitting in a room" is a multi media piece and that it was created [...] by Mary and Alvin Lucier. I think it's important to mention Mary Lucier's work Polaroid Slide Series in relation to the 1970 (and 2019 if there are reliable, secondary sources) performance of I am sitting in a room, and if you have source to back up Both considered the performance in 2019 as only the 2nd time the 'full piece' has been performed / exhibited, that's certainly worth noting in the article. But other than Mary Lucier using the word "collaboration" and Alvin Lucier using the phrase "the visual part", your sources don't demonstrate that there is a consensus in the literature for I am sitting in a room to refer to anything other than Alvin Lucier's sound art or for Mary Lucier's Polaroid Slide Series to not be viewed as a separate work. Umimmak (talk) 04:22, 30 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I do find the comment that wiki isn't a place to right great wrongs odd given that it was set up partially to do exactly that & that its founders campaign for distorted histories around racism, gender equality etc to be corrected. as for secondary sources I am unclear why you don't consider the Guggenhiem as a reliable secondary source when the 1970 performance was listed as the works premiere and by Mary and Alvin Lucier. Likewise the 2019 performance at the Fridman gallery (rf. link was listed on the page); https://www.fridmangallery.com/new-ear-2019. I think, and you will disagree with this, that one of the big problems with art history in these matters is that most of the secondary sources were written by men in a patriarchal structure / culture and, as many female artists experience (& still do as this situation shows) their contributions to collaborative pieces are either dismissed entirely or written out of the history. The two artists choose to refer to the work as by Alvin & Mary Lucier & it seems bizarre that anyone is arguing that their choice on how to exhibit the piece, name it and work on it together should be dismissed. I should also like to add that the recording used for the 1970 show and the one that Alvin used afterwards is not the recording from 1969 that some refer to but (as sources show) one in March 1970 recording in the flat they shared and with both artists in attendance, Alvin recording the voice whilst Mary documented the chair & room.
 * Some other facts that could be useful here; the 'evidence' for it being a solo piece by Alvin relies only on two sources; 1) the copyright of 1970 stated on the text score version. At that time (& still in some countries) to allow a work to be added to various income / royalty collection agencies a composer was not allowed to stipulate any visual element to the work in these sorts of contexts, hence the various issues Paik and Moorman, Brown, Cage and others had with both getting works registered in order to earn income & have them documented in the standard classical system and in the conflict between 'music' and 'art' which to this day still sees key pieces of Sound Art unable to collect performance royalties even if made entirely of 'music' or musical elements. It is still the case that we Sound Artists have to register our works in various 'music' systems to receive royalties from it. If we look for other examples of one person in a couple deciding how to refer to works after some kind of separation there are key examples in the work of Ulay & Abramović (works created by the couple, featuring the couple have been performed solo by MA & credited in those performances to her alone), Christo & Jean-Claude where we have a very contemporary example of problematic, lazy attribution of key works created by the couple being referred to as by Christo almost immediately following J-C's passing. 2) as already stated the tape used in the premiere was created in March 1970 in the couples apartment with both artist present and involved, including Mary's involvement with the recording process. Some claim that as Alvin Lucier made a test recording using an almost identical text in 1969 this proves the idea for the piece was his, however as Mary Lucier was already working (for some years) with degraded images it could quite reasonably by stated that the genesis of her part of the piece came first & if we are going to use date & situation of the creation of any part as some kind of basis for deciding who created the piece then a) Mary began work first in her tests on degraded images b) the actual piece was 'created' in March 1970 in a room where both artists were and were both artists created the key elements. I would hope this clarifies. It perhaps should also be noted that the 2019 performance is credited to Mary Lucier alone & includes the tape recording, this as a direct comment on the situation with attribution of the work. If both artists are allowed (as all of the various reductive edits imply) to decide to alter attribution after a piece premiers then allowing only the male in a male / female couple any recognition of that is inherently prejudiced and biased. Again, 'I Am Sitting in a Room' was created in March 1970 as a piece of multi-media art by two artists working in collaboration over months and on that specific day. Both elements (sound and images) have had to be given separate copyright marks when their individual elements have been performed / shown since & that is standard for works involving more than one creator. It does not remove the original copyright of a piece from its creation and first public showing.

JrFedit (talk) 07:17, 30 June 2020 (UTC)


 * one more thing to add: there isn't a 'main page' for the art work premiered in 1970 & therefore as things stood and I think its reasonable to argue will continue for some time even if corrected to stand, most people find their way to the work, on wiki, via the incorrect history that it was a piece created only by Alvin. Correcting it by the key / main page on wiki showing the origin of the actual art work, and listing its subsequent iterations below that, means that students & interested parties have the opportunity to correctly, and very interestingly, understand the work in its full context both at the time of its creation and its place in the problems with art history. It is a massively positive act to correct the history & has benefits for everyone interested in it & in art. JrFedit (talk) 09:07, 30 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Further idea: There is a discussion with Alvin and Mary Lucier in issue No. 10 of Source: Music of the Avant Garde (1971) that might be helpful. It must surely be about the collaboration. I am surprised to see it has not been used in this article up to now. My own copy, unfortunately, is inaccessible in some box or other in deep storage since a move four-and-a-half years ago, and my university's library is shut down due to the coronavirus crisis.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:37, 29 June 2020 (UTC)


 * following some emails received I want to clarify something publicly as there is clearly still a misunderstanding. I am not arguing that 'Room' (ML) & 'I am sitting in a room' (AL) didn't or can't be seen as separate works or indeed however the artists choose to see them. I am arguing that the 1970 exhibition is, in art history terms, a key point in the time line of the collaborative piece and that recognition of that should be front & centre so that future students when searching for references for 'I am sitting in a room' don't get steered to only to AL's work and not to a more rounded history. JrFedit (talk) 15:55, 30 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I am arguing that the 1970 exhibition is, in art history terms, a key point in the time line of the collaborative piece and that recognition of that should be front & centre so that future students when searching for references for 'I am sitting in a room' don't get steered to only to AL's work and not to a more rounded history. and if you want to do that, that's fine. I said before it makes sense to have talk about the 1970 exhibition in the history and performance section. The issue was more things like changing infoboxes and the lead paragraph to say the piece is primarily a single multi-media piece created by both Mary and Alvin, but I think we're on the same page now. Umimmak (talk) 00:50, 8 July 2020 (UTC)