St John’s precinct – a sprawling, ugly, claustrophobic, soulless shopping center in the center of town was used as both performance space and instrument by an experimental music collective. Whilst an ambient piece played over the center’s pa system, a team of ‘technicians’ dressed in red overalls walked through the center with homemade conducting equipment. Some were cooking utensils such as a seive or a metal whisk attatched to poles and amplified through a multitude of small speakers adorning the technicians waists.
As they made their way through the center, this equipment was used to produce tones and static frequencies from conductive surfaces – including the consumers themselves.
I had three small pads placed on my arm which produced a distorted frequency – the items in a DIY store, a child’s toy, a pushchair and the walls of the building itself were amongst some of the other ‘instruments’ used.
These sounds were then recorded and ‘remixed’ with the ambient piece later in the day in another venue – isolating the unrecognisable sounds of consumerism and transforming them into music. I couldn’t help but recall ‘The sound sweep’ or indeed many other elements of various Ballard works…I wonder if anyone would care to extract any deeper meaning from this rather unique event?

You’re referring to the Nick Halsted article? He does appear to suggest that Music for Airports was the album that resulted from Eno’s recuperation whereas it is in fact, as you point out, Discreet Music.

You could also track ambient music back through Cage to Charles Ives…