ABOUT: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE RANDOM AUDIO THERAPY UNIT

This is the third incarnation of the Random Audio Therapy Unit to date. It began as an idea in the mind of Martyn Coulson many years ago and since then it has been to Hull and back.

The basic premiss was to create a continuous sound piece using the minimum technology available. In 2002 Coulson’s technicians; Ziggy Campbell, Chris Labroy, Tommy Perman and Kev Sim each created a mini-disc of short tracks of sound (each disc had a total duration of roughly 15 minutes). Four mini disc players were input into a mixing desk, each player was set to play on the repeat and random or shuffle functions. Coulson’s original idea was that the mini-disc players would give a ‘live’ performance as a kind of band. Therefore the sounds on each disc were roughly grouped into traditional instrumental categories: melody, bass, percussion and effects. The first performance of the unit took place in Gray’s School of Art and Coulson was sufficiently excited by the outcome that he decided it should be developed and shown in a gallery environment.

RATU version 1.0 RSA Student Show, March 2002

The first version was installed by Martyn Coulson in the RSA student exhibition in 2002 (9 – 20 March 2002, McLellan Galleries, Glasgow). An old medical cabinet had been donated by the Martin Church Foundation to house the equipment - this completely changed the appearance of the work which gave rise to the name, ‘The Random Audio Therapy Unit’. Coulson began to have dreams of taking the unit into hospitals and setting it up to see if it had any healing properties – so far none have been proven although the unit was found to induce feelings of extreme wellbeing.

Coulson’s artistic output over the last year had left him exhausted and he took a short hiatus from the pressures of the art world. In the mean time his technicians (with permission) have developed the idea into the product that you are currently looking at.

Ziggy Campbell, Tommy Perman and Kev Sim decided that they had allowed themselves too much control over the production of versions 1 and 2. They wanted to remove as much control as possible by introducing more structure and a number of random elements. Firstly it was agreed that there needed to be strict rules determining how the sounds were created. Three variables were drawn up: Time, Method and Type. Time was broken down into 30 segments: 10 x 20 seconds, 10 x 40 seconds and 10 x 60 seconds – a total of 20 minutes. Method was broken into 3 categories: Acoustic, Found and Synthesised. Type was broken down into 6 categories: Ambience, Bass, Melody, Percussion, Silence and White Noise.

On Wednesday 16 and Thursday 17 July 2003, three draws were made at Ziggy’s flat in Aberdeen to determine the sounds that each person had to collect (the results can be seen on the left hand of this page). Each person now had 30 instructions. For example, Ziggy’s first instruction was to collect or record 60 seconds of Found Ambience. Each person should have had an equal number of Types of sound to record. However, due to a human error both Ziggy and Kev ended up with 6 x Ambience rather than 5. It was agreed that this huge set back would not jeopardise the project and the technicians bravely continued.

A deadline of Friday 5 September 2003 was set for the collection of the sounds. But the technicians were so eager that they completed their instructions early and a draw was made on Thursday 28 August to randomly distributed the 90 sounds over 4 CDs.

On Thursday 11 September 4 CD players performed the Random Audio Therapy Unit version 3.0 at Limousine Bull, Aberdeen. Their names are LG ADR620, PHILLIPS CDR770, SONY CDP M201 & TECHNICS SL-PJ28A. A new unit had been procured for the performance from the Aberdeen branch of Marks & Spencers which gave version 3 a brand new identity. The purpose of this particular performance was to make 2 randomly selected recordings of 12 minutes each (the optimum duration for one side of a 12”) these recordings were to be pressed onto vinyl.

RATU version 3.0 Limousine Bull, Aberdeen, September 2001

One recording was to be made during the hour of 7 pm, another during the hour of 8 pm. On arriving at Limousine Bull each person was given a raffle ticket. Shortly before 7 pm, celebrity guest, Iain Connell selected 2 numbers and 2 members of the audience pulled a number from 2 black bags. The first recording was to take place at 7:36 pm. This process was repeated shortly before 8. The second recording was to take place at 8:17 pm. During this recording one of the CD players began to skip.

At precisely 7 pm, Ziggy Campbell, Tommy Perman and Kev Sim started the RATU. It continued playing until 9 pm and was widely considered to be the most successful version of the project.