JASMINE GUFFOND

A new experimental electronic music album, Microphone Permission, gives sound to the data collection that occurs online and in our smart cities daily.
Literally disquieting, Jasmine Guffond’s fourth solo album invites listeners to consider the implications of invasive contemporary digital listening practices. …

“I’m drawn to give sound to things usually beyond human perception – facial recognition algorithms, global networks or internet tracking cookies – and to question what it means for our personal habits to be traceable and our identities, choices and personalities to be reduced to streams of data.”

Microphone Permission refers to the consent given by smart device users when installing certain apps. The name was inspired by a 2018 scandal when La Liga, an app for Spanish soccer fans, was discovered to be using microphone access and GPS location to catch out bars broadcasting soccer matches without the correct licence, turning app users into unwitting spies.

Editions Mego, releases an anxiety-inducing record by Australian-born, Berlin-based sound artist Jasmine Guffond. Aptly titled, Microphone Permission addresses the supposed consent users give to smartphones for algorithmic eavesdropping, sonifying the tools of digital surveillance in real time as they extract, store, and monitor one’s personal information. Drawing listeners into a paranoid, data-driven soundscape where influences of drone, minimal electronic, and noise music give way to ambient club, Guffond provides an experiential platform for these ubiquitous, invasive, and otherwise undetectable processes.

“Every single technical component of our smart devices can be and will be, used and repurposed to identify and track us,” says conceptual artist and electronic musician Jasmine Guffond. “One significant technological development is the proliferation of smart assistants. Amazon has sold more than 100 million Alexa devices and a quarter of U.S. adults own a smart speaker. These devices are forever listening. We’ve invited surveillance as service into our homes.” This theme of surveillance is an integral part of Guffond’s new album, Microphone Permission. A surprisingly seductive blend of ambient, classical and gently pulsating techno influences, the album is a bold exploration of our evolving relationship to technology.

Die Musik zum Thema Überwachungskapitalismus und staatlichem Browser-Panoptismus. Die in Berlin ansässige Australierin Jasmine Guffond hatte zuletzt mit der Chrome- und Firefox-Erweiterung Listening Back User_innen ermöglicht, Cookies in Sound umzuwandeln und macht nun auf Microphone Permission Ähnliches.

Sounds Of Surveillance

Jasmine Guffond talks to DJ Soeur Veillance aka Gloria González Fuster, a Research Professor and Co-Director of the Law, Science, Technology and Society Research Group at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, investigating data laws and policies, and most notably data protection.

Jasmine Guffond: The sounds of surveillance is something of a misnomer. I mean for me the whole point is that surveillance makes no sound, and therefore I’m giving it a sound so that we can hear some of these data collection processes that are usually obscured and operating in the background.

Jasmine Guffond debuts on Editions Mego with a new album, Microphone Permission.

As the title suggests, the album draws from Guffond’s research into online surveillance and features source material from a variety of projects the artist has been involved with over the last two years.

She will premiere the album during an audiovisual performance at this year’s edition of CTM.

Editions Mego will release the new album by Australian producer Jasmine Guffond, titled Microphone Permission.

Guffond developed the album over a two-year period as part of her ongoing research into online surveillance and sound as a method of investigation.

Der Sound der Überwachung

Wer wissen möchte, wie sein eigenes Gesicht klingt, sollte sich an Jasmine Guffond wenden: Die australische Soundkünstlerin und Komponistin weiß Bescheid. Im Rahmen ihres „Sound Studies“-Studiums an der Universität der Künste sollte sich Guffond mit ihren Kommilitonen vor fünf Jahren einen Soundwalk rund um die Deutsche Oper ausdenken, einen Hörspaziergang also, bei dem man sich einen Ort über Klang und Geräusche erschließt. Das Thema war „Protest“

Biennial Project: Overtone Hive, 2019
Sound sculpture

Commissioned by the 2019 ChicagoArchitecture Biennial
In collaboration with: Jasmine Guffond and Lional “Brother El” Freeman

Zorka Wollny invited Jasmine Guffond to collaborate on a 30 channel sound installation at the abandoned Overton Elementary School in Bronzeville, Chicago.

“Invitée : Jasmine Guffond” / Playlist

RVNG Intl. includes Jasmine Guffond’s track “Serge & Maxine Variation Two” from her album Alien Intelligence in their latest ‘favs EOY selection for 2024.

Alien Intelligence  was conceived during Guffond’s 2021 GRM residency and was composed on GRM’s Serge modular synth alongside Max MSP. The intention was for the technology to have as much of an imprint on the music as the composer herself, calling to mind Roland Kayn’s cybernetic approach to computer music. Indeed, experimental music has long called into question the role of the composer themself, going back to John Cage’s indeterminate music. Alien Intelligence, however, exists in the context of AI increasingly seeping its way into every aspect of art, labor and culture. Thus, there’s a palpable tension in Alien Intelligence, existing somewhere between the bliss of letting go of control and the potential for disruption inherent in all technology. The three tracks on this album each stand as statements of their own.