Dead voices and lost sounds: an imagined sonic history

A project description of a sound art installation and interactive performance presented as part of the Up Close Festival in New York City in the winter of 2019/2020. The article is authored by the creator and director of the piece, Adrienne Kapstein. Created for an all-age audience, the piece was a unique, relational and socially engaged experience that merged sound art, live performance, illusion, technology, and audience participation. Designed to be completed in partnership with members of the community it sought to serve, the piece invited participation from every audience member through multiple and varied means of engagement.

Noise is Not Volume Alone – Ambiences and Drony Experiments in Music and Sound Art

Noise is a complex category that has been used to describe instances of disturbance and disruption in technical vocabulary and in many artistic languages. In music, and more precisely, in sound art, noise has been imbued with specific significations that operate as aesthetical signifiers that convey meaning even beyond its intensity of volume. In this article, the theoretical aspects of noise are articulated through the analysis of concerning discourse around the transformations of the concept of sound, which ultimately resulted in the designation of a genre in itself – noise. Furthermore, it is through the enhancement of a ‘sonic turn’ that the notion of listening as a generative aesthetic practice has referred to the body as the main instance of meaning construction in relation to both time and space.

Musical Time in a Fast World

In this chapter Wilson addresses the relation between musical temporality and dominant conceptions of time under recent or ‘liquid’ modernity. He argues that the sonic arts (music, sound art, etc.) variously withdraw from and/or embrace normative time-making—thereby critically calling into question our assumptions about lived temporality. Wilson engages two examples, both intimately connected with the city of New York and the year 1983: Morton Feldman’s minimal yet durational String Quartet No. 2, and Bill Fontana’s Oscillating Steel Grids along the Brooklyn Bridge, the latter of which involved sounds from this bridge (traffic, the metal strut work, etc.) relayed live and broadcast in downtown Manhattan. Both works criss-crossed different temporalities and lived rhythms that contrasted with the speed implicit in 1980s hypercapitalism, forming dialogues between musical time and the cultures of its production.

Listening to Yourself Listening: The Metaperceptual Approach to Sound Art

<p>This thesis presents a framework for the creation and analysis of metaperceptual sound artworks. Metaperceptual is a term coined herein to describe a range of works that use the perception of the audience as their artistic materials. They provoke their audiences to direct their attention back upon themselves, inviting audiences to observe the nature of their perception and the subjectivity of their experience. A core focus of many contemporary works is the experience of the audience. These works act as ‘experience shapers’, guiding the audience through their materials and creating environments in which the audience can explore on their own terms. Metaperceptual works share this focus by drawing the audience’s attention back upon themselves, provoking them to attend to the subjectivity of their own experience. These works reveal facets of our perception that constantly mediate our experience, yet often go overlooked and unexplored. The framework presents a systematic ordering of different approaches to creating metaperceptual works. Three main categories of works are identified: Deprivation, Perceptual Translation, and Perceptual Hacking. Deprivation works involve the removal, reduction, or denial of the audience’s perceptual field. They intervene in the audience’s everyday modes of interaction by silencing the din of the world, revealing the facets of experience that often go unnoticed or are masked from our awareness. Perceptual Translation works directly interface with the audience’s perceptual apparatus by shifting, extending, and rearranging its orientation and organisation. These works offer the allure of experiencing what it is like to be someone or something else. By allowing us to experience the world through an altered lens, these works give us a new perspective on ourselves and the ways in which our perceptual apparatus mediates our experience. Lastly, Perceptual Hacking works involves a rich variety of perceptual oddities and artefacts. These works creatively misuse facets of the audience’s perceptual apparatus and perceptual processes, and, in doing so, reveal that our perception is not a neutral objective lens through which to perceive the world. Metaperceptual works employ a diversity of materials and techniques, and traverse a variety of media and styles. While these themes have most extensively been explored in the visual arts, their potential for sonic exploration is a key concern subject of this research. The framework maps the artistic terrain of metaperceptual approaches, and speculates on the potential for new metaperceptual works. To this end, a portfolio of new metaperceptual sound artworks is presented. These works test the metaperceptual framework, enacting the artistic avenues identified during its development. The works span a range of the approaches identified in the metaperceptual framework, and are manifestations of the framework as a creative tool.</p>

Listening to Yourself Listening: The Metaperceptual Approach to Sound Art

<p>This thesis presents a framework for the creation and analysis of metaperceptual sound artworks. Metaperceptual is a term coined herein to describe a range of works that use the perception of the audience as their artistic materials. They provoke their audiences to direct their attention back upon themselves, inviting audiences to observe the nature of their perception and the subjectivity of their experience. A core focus of many contemporary works is the experience of the audience. These works act as ‘experience shapers’, guiding the audience through their materials and creating environments in which the audience can explore on their own terms. Metaperceptual works share this focus by drawing the audience’s attention back upon themselves, provoking them to attend to the subjectivity of their own experience. These works reveal facets of our perception that constantly mediate our experience, yet often go overlooked and unexplored. The framework presents a systematic ordering of different approaches to creating metaperceptual works. Three main categories of works are identified: Deprivation, Perceptual Translation, and Perceptual Hacking. Deprivation works involve the removal, reduction, or denial of the audience’s perceptual field. They intervene in the audience’s everyday modes of interaction by silencing the din of the world, revealing the facets of experience that often go unnoticed or are masked from our awareness. Perceptual Translation works directly interface with the audience’s perceptual apparatus by shifting, extending, and rearranging its orientation and organisation. These works offer the allure of experiencing what it is like to be someone or something else. By allowing us to experience the world through an altered lens, these works give us a new perspective on ourselves and the ways in which our perceptual apparatus mediates our experience. Lastly, Perceptual Hacking works involves a rich variety of perceptual oddities and artefacts. These works creatively misuse facets of the audience’s perceptual apparatus and perceptual processes, and, in doing so, reveal that our perception is not a neutral objective lens through which to perceive the world. Metaperceptual works employ a diversity of materials and techniques, and traverse a variety of media and styles. While these themes have most extensively been explored in the visual arts, their potential for sonic exploration is a key concern subject of this research. The framework maps the artistic terrain of metaperceptual approaches, and speculates on the potential for new metaperceptual works. To this end, a portfolio of new metaperceptual sound artworks is presented. These works test the metaperceptual framework, enacting the artistic avenues identified during its development. The works span a range of the approaches identified in the metaperceptual framework, and are manifestations of the framework as a creative tool.</p>

“Machine Sound” and Microtonal Music

In the essay devoted to the invention of “machine” (or electromechanical) sound, one tries to rethink the familiar word combination “machine and artificial”. The latter one is not a word game. By the user-friendly separation of an octave into 12 uniform tone steps, the modern tonal system of the western hemisphere is therefore artificial by definition. In contrast to that, the vocal polyphony of the Renaissance is based on an increased usage of acoustically pure or natural intervals. Early attempts to extend instrumental compositions with the benefits of just intonation failed. An unexpected support for microtonal structures within instrumental music came from machines. Primarily by the dynamophone, one of the first electromechanical instruments, developed close to the beginning of the 20th century. Beside its primary task — the additive synthesis — its inventor Thaddeus Cahill aimed for a union of sound art and the laws of acoustics. Therefore, this instrument had the sheer amount of 36 keys per octave. From the point of view of representatives of the musical avant-garde, the control over pitch that came with the mastery of sound synthesis allowed the use of new tonal systems.

Designing Dynamic Systems For Advancing Aesthetic Spatial Engagement In Sound Art

<p>This thesis documents three years of extensive research into the field of sonic spatial expression and is the culmination of years of fascination about all of the ways music is made. In particular, it focuses on the way sounds move through space. This research stems from artistic practice and a desire to deeply explore spatial aesthetics in sound art. A potential for further development of tools designed for aesthetic engagement with spatial attributes of music is identified. It is proposed that with new tools designed for the manipulation of spatial attributes, new spatial aesthetics might emerge. In exploring this proposition, a number of contributions to the field of spatial sound art are presented. The main approach taken is to apply new technologies to the design of spatialisation performance interfaces. It is hoped that in designing novel interfaces that specifically engage with spatial parameters, new ways for aesthetically engaging with space will be afforded for composers and performers. The tools designed all aim to exhibit a high level of intuitiveness in their control systems, allowing non- expert users access to these spatially expressive tools. Additionally, the new tools aim to provide high levels of expressivity so that advanced composers who are looking for new ways to use space expressively may also use them. This thesis focuses on the design, development, implementation, analysis, and artistic use of new spatial interfaces. The design methodology implemented for all of the interfaces includes both testing and analysis phases that involve the composition and performance of new musical works. The development of the interfaces is closely coupled with the development of the new musical works, with each design phase applied to a new work and each new work or spatial idea exploring the new aesthetics afforded by the tools. The assessment of these new tools takes various forms: they are assessed by critical evaluation of the new works created, by user study evaluations from other composers who utilise the tools, and, where appropriate, by quantifiable methods of evaluation that are adopted to assess specific spatialisation tools. The new musical interfaces presented, described, and evaluated in this document were conceived of as musical instruments, each affording new approaches to spatial expression. This document also details an extensive collection of new musical works that feature the interfaces. It concludes by suggesting future directions for this research body and the spatialisation interface design field.</p>

Designing Dynamic Systems For Advancing Aesthetic Spatial Engagement In Sound Art

<p>This thesis documents three years of extensive research into the field of sonic spatial expression and is the culmination of years of fascination about all of the ways music is made. In particular, it focuses on the way sounds move through space. This research stems from artistic practice and a desire to deeply explore spatial aesthetics in sound art. A potential for further development of tools designed for aesthetic engagement with spatial attributes of music is identified. It is proposed that with new tools designed for the manipulation of spatial attributes, new spatial aesthetics might emerge. In exploring this proposition, a number of contributions to the field of spatial sound art are presented. The main approach taken is to apply new technologies to the design of spatialisation performance interfaces. It is hoped that in designing novel interfaces that specifically engage with spatial parameters, new ways for aesthetically engaging with space will be afforded for composers and performers. The tools designed all aim to exhibit a high level of intuitiveness in their control systems, allowing non- expert users access to these spatially expressive tools. Additionally, the new tools aim to provide high levels of expressivity so that advanced composers who are looking for new ways to use space expressively may also use them. This thesis focuses on the design, development, implementation, analysis, and artistic use of new spatial interfaces. The design methodology implemented for all of the interfaces includes both testing and analysis phases that involve the composition and performance of new musical works. The development of the interfaces is closely coupled with the development of the new musical works, with each design phase applied to a new work and each new work or spatial idea exploring the new aesthetics afforded by the tools. The assessment of these new tools takes various forms: they are assessed by critical evaluation of the new works created, by user study evaluations from other composers who utilise the tools, and, where appropriate, by quantifiable methods of evaluation that are adopted to assess specific spatialisation tools. The new musical interfaces presented, described, and evaluated in this document were conceived of as musical instruments, each affording new approaches to spatial expression. This document also details an extensive collection of new musical works that feature the interfaces. It concludes by suggesting future directions for this research body and the spatialisation interface design field.</p>

Channelisation of Noise through a Rhythmic Grid: Brutalist Mechatronic Sound-sculpture

<p>The aim of this thesis is to provide accessibility and appreciation for sounds that are conventionally perceived as non-musical or “noise”. Ordering the noise on a grid of metric rhythms, and underlining its materiality through an audiovisual mode of expression are the two main strategies employed. Using the medium of mechatronics, mechanically generated sonic by-products of technological developments are chosen as the focus sonic material. As a result, the output of this research extends what is known as glitch music outside the territory of amplified sound, to a realm where noise is created physically and acoustically. Based on these objectives, and following an investigation on the use of mechatronics in contemporary sound-based art, an ensemble of mechatronic sound-sculptures is designed and developed. Varying in terms of material, sound-generating mechanism, and sonic quality, the ensemble is divided into three different instrument-types, each of which is introduced, thoroughly described, and sonically evaluated. Next, three new audiovisual works are developed and realised utilising the mechatronic sound-sculptures, in order to turn into practice the ideas explored in this research. These compositions – which are all exhibited in competitive international symposiums – undertake the integration of mechatronics in three areas of sonic arts that are interconnected with the sound-sculptures. Furthermore, this thesis also establishes an aesthetic framework that formalises a significant body of contemporary sound art and music that, prior to this work, had suffered academic inattention. Probing the various parallels between the ideas developed in this thesis and Brutalist architecture, ‘sound-based brutalism’ is coined and formulated as an aesthetic underpinning for not only the academically marginalised works discussed, but also the work of the author. Lastly, two audiovisual projects (a performance and a series of ten installation pieces) are developed using the entire mechatronic sound-sculpture series in an effort to realise ‘sound-based brutalism’.</p>