The Ephemeral City : Songs for the Ghost Quarters

The towers of the Stockholm skyline twine with radio transmissions, flying out over the city, drifting down through the streets and sinking into the underground telephone system below. Stockholm has buildings that have been there for centuries, but is also full of modern and contemporary architectures, all jostling for their place in parallel collective memory. In taking the city up as a subject, this artistic PhD project in music expands allegories to these architectural instruments into the world of the mechanical and the electrical. By taking up and transforming the materials of the cityscape, this project spins ephemeral cities more subtle than the colossal forces transforming the cityscape. The aim is to empower urban dwellers with another kind of ownership of their city.The materials in the project are drawn around themes of urban memory and transformation, psychogeography and the ghosts of the imagined city. There are three questions the artistic works of this project reflect on and address. The first is about the ability of city-dwellers to regain or create some sense of place, history or belonging through the power of their imaginations. The second reflects on the possibility for imagined alternatives to re-empower a sense of place for the people who encounter them. The third seeks out the points where stories, memories, or alternative futures are collective, at what point are they wholly individual, and how the interplay between them plays out in listening.There is an improvisatory practice in how we relate to urban environments: an ever-transforming inter-play between the animate and inanimate. Each individual draws phantoms of memory and imagination onto the cityscape, and this yields subtle ways people can be empowered in their surroundings. The artistic works of this project are made to illuminate those subtleties, centering around a group of compositions, improvisations, artistic collaborations and sound installations in music and sound, utilizing modular synthesizers, field recordings, pipe organs, multi-channel settings; PureData and SuperCollider programs, string ensembles with hurdy-gurdy and nyckelharpa or violin, and sound installations. This choice of instruments is as an allegory to the architecture of Stockholm. The final result is a collection of music and sound works, made to illuminate the imagined city. Taken as a whole, the works of the project create an imaginary city–The Ephemeral City–in order to argue that this evocation of ephemeral space is a way to empower urban dwellers through force of imagination, immune to the vast forces tearing through the fabric of Stockholm life by virtue of the ghostly, transitory and mercurial, as compelling to the inner eye as brick and mortar to the outer life

Wavelength (September 1987)

https://scholarworks.uno.edu/wavelength/1068/thumbnail.jp

Designing instruments towards networked music practices

It is commonly noted in New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) research that few of these make it to the mainstream and are adopted by the general public. Some research in Sound and Music Computing (SMC) suggests that the lack of humanistic research guiding technological development may be one of the causes. Many new technologies are invented, however without real aim else than for technical innovation, great products however emphasize the user-friendliness, user involvement in the design process or User-Centred Design (UCD), that seek to guarantee that innovation address real, existing needs among users. Such an approach includes not only traditionally quantifiable usability goals, but also qualitative, psychological, philosophical and musical such. The latter approach has come to be called experience design, while the former is referred to as interaction design. Although the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) community in general has recognized the significance of qualitative needs and experience design, NIME has been slower to adopt this new paradigm. This thesis therefore attempts to investigate its relevance in NIME, and specifically Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) for music applications by devising a prototype for group music action based on needs defined from pianists engaging in piano duets, one of the more common forms of group creation seen in the western musical tradition. These needs, some which are socio-emotional in nature, are addressed through our prototype although in the context of computers and global networks by allowing for composers from all over the world to submit music to a group concert on a Yamaha Disklavier in location in Porto, Portugal. Although this prototype is not a new gestural controller per se, and therefore not a traditional NIME, but rather a platform that interfaces groups of composers with a remote audience, the aim of this research is on investigating how contextual parameters like venue, audience, joint concert and technologies impact the overall user experience of such a system. The results of this research has been important not only in understanding the processes, services, events or environments in which NIME’s operate, but also understanding reciprocity, creativity, experience design in Networked Music practices.É de conhecimento generalizado que na área de investigação em novos interfaces para expressão musical (NIME - New Interfaces for Musical Expression), poucos dos resultantes dispositivos acabam por ser popularizados e adoptados pelo grande público. Algum do trabalho em computação sonora e musical (SMC- Sound and Music Computing) sugere que uma das causas para esta dificuldade, reside numalacuna ao nível da investigação dos comportamentos humanos como linha orientadora para os desenvolvimentos tecnológicos. Muitos dos desenvolvimentos tecnológicos são conduzidos sem um real objectivo, para além da inovação tecnológica, resultando em excelentes produtos, mas sem qualquer enfâse na usabilidade humana ou envolvimento do utilizador no processo de Design (UCDUser Centered Design), no sentido de garantir que a inovação atende a necessidades reais dos utilizadores finais. Esta estratégia implica, não só objectivos quantitativos tradicionais de usabilidade, mas também princípios qualitativos, fisiológicos, psicológicos e musicológicos. Esta ultima abordagem é atualmente reconhecida como Design de Experiência (Experience Design) enquanto a abordagem tradicional é vulgarmente reconhecida apenas como Design de Interação (Interaction Design). Apesar de na área Interação Homem-Computador (HCI – Human Computer Interaction) as necessidades qualitativas no design de experiência ser amplamente reconhecido em termos do seu significado e aplicabilidade, a comunidade NIME tem sido mais lenta em adoptar este novo paradigma. Neste sentido, esta Tese procura investigar a relevância em NIME, especificamente nu subtópico do trabalho cooperativo suportado por Computadores (CSCW – Computer Supported Cooperative Work), para aplicações musicais, através do desenvolvimento de um protótipo de um sistema que suporta ações musicais coletivas, baseado nas necessidades especificas de Pianistas em duetos de Piano, uma das formas mais comuns de criação musical em grupo popularizada na tradição musical ocidental. Estes requisitos, alguns sócioemocionais na sua natureza, são atendidos através do protótipo, neste caso aplicado ao contexto informático e da rede de comunicações global, permitindo a compositores de todo o mundo submeterem a sua música para um concerto de piano em grupo num piano acústico Yamaha Disklavier, localizado fisicamente na cidade do Porto, Portugal. Este protótipo não introduz um novo controlador em si mesmo, e consequentemente não está alinhado com as típicas propostas de NIME. Trata-se sim, de uma nova plataforma de interface em grupo para compositores com uma audiência remota, enquadrado com objectivos de experimentação e investigação sobre o impacto de diversos parâmetros, tais como o espaço performativo, as audiências, concertos colaborativos e tecnologias em termos do sistema global. O resultado deste processo de investigação foi relevante, não só para compreender os processos, serviços, eventos ou ambiente em que os NIME podem operar, mas também para melhor perceber a reciprocidade, criatividade e design de experiencia nas práticas musicais em rede

Ecotonality, or Adapting Soundscape Ecology to Creative Practice: Ecological Sound Art Responses to Four South Australian Ecosystems

Vol. 1 Exegesis -- Vol. 2 Creative Artefacts DVDEcotonality, or Adapting Soundscape Ecology to Creative Practice: Ecological Sound Art Responses to Four South Australian Ecosystems presents a practice-led research project, introducing Ecotonality, a creative framework which connects and adapts the principles, frameworks and methods of the ecological discipline, ‘soundscape ecology’ to ecological sound art practice. It consists of a portfolio of creative works and 30,000-word exegesis. Drawing on the growth of research in soundscape ecology (and by extension ecoacoustics, bioacoustics and acoustic ecology), in the past decade, the Ecotonal Creative Framework considers the adaptation of soundscape ecology research, fieldwork and analysis as it relates to creative concerns of project conception, data collation, creative material preparation, compositional assemblage, artistic realisation and post-project reflection. Additionally, the framework appraises roles of human and non-human agency (via Karen Barad and Timothy Morton), and the inherent role and implications of technological mediation, as related to soundscape ecology and creative practice. Ecotonality allows a reconsideration of the macro- and micromorphological relationships of ecosystems in creative works, which engages the ethical concerns of site-specific practice and impact of creative work on ecosystems and soundscapes. Four creative site-specific responses are subsequently discussed, each in response a different South Australian site - Mobilong Swamp (swamp ecosystem), Long Island (riparian ecosystem), Featherstone Place (urban ecosystem) and Farina (desert ecosystem) - and each employing multichannel surround sound setups and acoustic instrumentation. These creative project act as case studies of the implementation of the Ecotonal Creative Framework, creatively expressing ideas related to place, ecosystem, soundscape and identity. Through the recording, manipulation and utilisation of extant material circumstances of particular places, (i.e. their contemporary soundscape and ecosystem), the resultant creative responses provide commentary on ecological, sociocultural, political and spiritual circumstances, histories and identities.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, Elder Conservatorium of Music, 201

Wavelength (October 1985)

https://scholarworks.uno.edu/wavelength/1054/thumbnail.jp

Sonic utopia and social dystopia in the music of Hendrix, Reznor and Deadmau5

Twentieth-century popular music is fundamentally associated with electronics in its creation and recording, consumption, modes of dissemination, and playback. Traditional musical analysis, placing primacy on notated music, generally focuses on harmony, melody, and form, with issues of timbre and postproduction effects remaining largely unstudied. Interdisciplinary methodological practices address these limitations and can help broaden the analytical scope of popular idioms. Grounded in Jacques Attali's critical theories about the political economy of music, this dissertation investigates how the subversive noise of electronic sound challenges a controlling order and predicts broad cultural realignment. This study demonstrates how electronic noise, as an extra-musical element, creates modern soundscapes that require a new mapping of musical form and social intent. I further argue that the use of electronics in popular music signifies a technologically-obsessed postwar American culture moving rapidly towards an online digital revolution. I examine how electronic music technology introduces new sounds concurrent with generational shifts, projects imagined utopian and dystopian futures, and engages the tension between automated modern life and emotionally validating musical communities in real and virtual spaces. Chapter One synthesizes this interdisciplinary American studies project with the growing scholarship of sound studies in order to construct theoretical models for popular music analysis drawn from the fields of musicology, history, and science and technology studies. Chapter Two traces the emergence of the electronic synthesizer as a new sound that facilitated the transition of a technological postwar American culture into the politicized counterculture of the 1960s. The following three chapters provide case studies of individual popular artists' use of electronic music technology to express societal and political discontent: 1) Jimi Hendrix's application of distortion and stereo effects to narrate an Afrofuturist consciousness in the 1960s; 2) Trent Reznor's aggressive industrial rejection of Conservatism in the 1980s; and 3) Deadmau5's mediation of online life through computer-based production and performance in the 2000s. Lastly, this study extends existing discussions within sound studies to consider the cultural implications of music technology, noise politics, electronic timbre, multitrack audio, digital analytical techniques and online communities built through social media

Wavelength (October 1985)

https://scholarworks.uno.edu/wavelength/1054/thumbnail.jp

More 1980s than the 1980s

This article analyzes the close relation between synthwave music and cinema, focusing on the role played by the former in paradigmatic films and TV series from the 1980s and the 2010s. To the two eras correspond two sets of semantic “associations,” which designate the functions and connotations embodied by synthwave in the cinematic context. The first analysis focuses on the context in which the association between the two protagonists of this affair has taken place for the first time, trying to understand why sci-fi cinema is often privileged when it comes to the association with (proto-)synthwave music—especially soundtracks by Tangerine Dream, John Carpenter, Giorgio Moroder and Vangelis, which are often referred to as main sources of inspiration for contemporary synthwave. The result is a first set of two “first-order associations” between synthwave and sci-fi cinema on the one side, and with the 1980s geek culture on the other. The focus then shifts towards the present times, exploring the ways in which synthwave soundtracks remediate 1980s popular culture by employing two “second-order associations” between synthwave and mediated, hyperreal versions of the 1980s and its products. In particular, the protagonists of this second analysis are the functions of synthwave soundtracks as an “age-synecdoche” and as an “aesthetic mediator,” especially in the series Stranger Things, in the movie It Follows, and in the late works by director Nicolas Winding Refn

The Domestic Soundscape and beyond… presenting everyday sounds to audiences

This PhD submission contains a select portfolio of practical works that have been created in answer to my research questions. This Thesis contextualises those works in a theoretical framework, linking them explicitly to the academic discourses with which they are inexorably bound. The introduction of this Thesis examines the research context in which research questions were formed. Evaluating a complicated previous project and describing a seminal, difficult encounter with the realm of sound art, this section explores some of the problems involved with presenting everyday sounds to audiences and proposes that these problems might in part be solved by forming new presentational strategies. Problems discussed include the difficulty of presenting everyday sounds to audiences who do not have access to the same information and knowledge that the work’s creator(s) have; presenting everyday sounds to audiences in conditions which offer limited scope for interaction and participation; and presenting everyday sounds to audiences which rely specifically on the primacy of those sounds alone to communicate a message to listeners. The questions that are formed in order to begin solving these problems include looking to feminist art practices of the 1960s/70s for inspiration regarding how theories concerning the value of everyday sounds might be practically applied to artmaking in domestic contexts; exploring ethnographic or Anthropological models to see how everyday sounds might be presented to audiences through investigative, participatory formats; investigating the possibilities for subverting or expanding the frameworks through which sound art is typically disseminated so that that territory might better accommodate the specific resonances and associations of everyday sounds; and proposing Internet-based strategies for presenting everyday sounds to audiences which are inherently intertextual, participatory, and social. The first Chapter of this Thesis examines how the home might be re-envisioned as a sound art site and brings the theories of John Cage together with feminist art thought to reinvent that space as a specifically sonic site. In the second Chapter, investigative anthropological approaches to the everyday are the focus of the discussion. This Chapter explores the context of radio as an inherently domestic medium, and discusses how it might be used as such for the presentation of everyday sounds to audiences. In the third Chapter of this thesis, I position my research in relation to the established tenets of contemporary sound art. Exploring ideas of subversion and critique, this Chapter looks at the proposed revisions to those established tenets which I have offered throughout my research. The final Chapter explores how I have used the Internet both in specific instances and more generally within my practice, connecting my research with emergent recording technologies and Internet platforms which allow everyday sounds to be socially shared. In the conclusion, I discuss what the key findings of exploring these questions have been