SOUNDCASTLES: Play and process in field-recording composition

Soundcastles: Play and process in field-recording composition is a practice-led research in experimental music, which investigates the medium of field-recording as a contested vanguard between the listener and the listened; the self and the soundscape; the composer and the material. The research consists of a portfolio of nine field-recording compositions and a corresponding commentary exploring the ideas, approaches, and discourses behind. It studies the complex boundary where the listener and the sonic environment meet, and explores the music potential of sounds in the urban everyday between the immediacy of their emergence, and the cognitive-emotional context of their subjective perception. In the tradition of soundscape composition with field recordings, a main focus of this research is the integration of the affective and the effective qualities of being in the world and listening. The music properties of urban soundscapes can thus be both emphasised and transfigured, so as to include the subjective aesthetic perception without losing the unique connection to their place of origin. The resulting compositions—soundcastles—become mediations between subject and object, soundscape and inner-scape, the actualised and the potential. This research investigates this liminal space of convergence where a listener encounters the sonic environment, and explores the potency of this encounter. It thus problematises the perceived bifurcation of subject and object of listening, and treats the soundscape in terms of imbricated processes within a network of relationships. Each soundcastle is a process of reducing the continuous acoustic environment to a concrete form as perceived from a standpoint. In particular, the methodology of this practice utilises modern signal processing and editing tools to highlight the subjective experience of a soundscape, while preserving the connection of the composition to the specific place and occasion of its recording. In this way, the Soundcastles project aims to situate itself at the in-between space between phonography and acousmatic music within the field of soundscape composition

Identification of expressive descriptors for style extraction in music analysis using linear and nonlinear models

La formalización de las interpretaciones expresivas aún se considera relevante debido a la complejidad de la música. La interpretación expresiva forma un aspecto importante de la música, teniendo en cuenta diferentes convenciones como géneros o estilos que una interpretación puede desarrollar con el tiempo. Modelar la relación entre las expresiones musicales y los aspectos estructurales de la información acústica requiere una base probabilística y estadística mínima para la robustez, validación y reproducibilidad de aplicaciones computacionales. Por lo tanto, es necesaria una relación cohesiva y una justificación sobre los resultados. Esta tesis se sustenta en la teoría y aplicaciones de modelos discriminativos y generativos en el marco del aprendizaje de maquina y la relación de procedimientos sistemáticos con los conceptos de la musicología utilizando técnicas de procesamiento de señales y minería de datos. Los resultados se validaron mediante pruebas estadísticas y una experimentación no paramétrica con la implementación de un conjunto de métricas para medir aspectos acústicos y temporales de archivos de audio para entrenar un modelo discriminativo y mejorar el proceso de síntesis de un modelo neuronal profundo. Adicionalmente, el modelo implementado presenta la oportunidad para la aplicación de procedimientos sistemáticos, automatización de transcripciones usando notación musical, entrenamiento de habilidades auditivas para estudiantes de música y mejorar la implementación de redes neuronales profundas usando CPU en lugar de GPU debido a las ventajas de las redes convolucionales para el procesamiento de archivos de audio como vectores o matriz con una secuencia de notas.MaestríaMagister en Ingeniería Electrónic

Environmental Sound Composition, the Phonograph and Intentionality

Environmental sound composition, a term I employ to describe all forms of electroacoustic works in which the core materials are abstracted from real environments through technology, has been practiced in a variety of forms for more than 50 years. A tension exists between environmental sound composition and western art music, one that continues to make this marriage uncomfortable. In short, the use of mimetic materials in environmental sound composition does not fit the prescriptions of formalism, an ideology that electroacoustic composition inherited from western art music. Though attempts have been made to lessen this tension (Emmerson, 1986 and Smalley, 1996), an underlying anxiety persists in environmental sound composition, as the twin legacy of Pierre Schaeffer’s ideas concerning musique concrète and the concerns of acoustic ecology, a movement championed by soundscape composers (Westerkamp, 2002), continues to influence the genre. Recently there has emerged an increasing resistance to the didactic ideology of soundscape theory in particular, as exemplified by Lopez (1997), Ingold (2007) and Kelman (2010). However, soundscape theory continues to influence the production of environmental sound composition, as composers seek to align themselves with such concerns, or place themselves in opposition to them. In my view, the tension between formalism and mimesis has resulted in a widespread fixation on poietic intent in environmental sound composition. As a result, composers have tried to dictate how their works should be heard, while ignoring the complexity of listener response. While a number of fresh perspectives have arisen in recent years looking at environmental sound composition methodology and the role of esthetic analysis in such works, including Voegelin (2010) and Lane and Carlyle (2013), a rigorous investigation into the roles of intentionality, technology and hermeneutic analysis in the production and reception of environmental sound composition remains absent. My thesis explores the nature of the phonograph (an audio recording) and phonography (the act of recording) in broad terms, and then with specific attention to environmental sound composition. Various recording genres and phonograph types associated with these genres are identified, while the attitudes of composers towards technology and the ontological nature of their works are investigated. This approach is applied in making a critical assessment of environmental sound composition, exposing the specificity of the rift between poietic intention and esthetic reception. I argue for a hermeneutic evaluation of the phonograph on similar terms as those set out by Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida (1981). In examining the temporal dimensions of the phonograph, along with its formal and affective traits, my research aims to elevate the phonograph from the role of a passive bearer of composer intentionality, to that of a primary contributor to the listening experience. With this aim in mind, I present a portfolio of creative works as a second volume to this thesis, born of the ideas discussed herein, which explore the nature of the phonograph, its temporalities, the site specific aspects of phonography and compositional intervention with the phonograph. I will refer to my works throughout this thesis, detailing how I have incorporated my theoretical concerns into my compositional practice, especially in chapter four, five and six

Graphomania: Composing Subjects in Late-Victorian Gothic Fiction and Technology

This dissertation explores the varied phenomena of “automatic writing” in Victorian Gothic fiction, reading the genre’s fascination with the irrepressible signifying practices of the body in light of the medical, criminological and scientific discourses that underwrite the “scriptural economy” of the late nineteenth century with their own arsenal of automatic writing machines. I have titled the project Graphomania, and I consider the term a keyword of late-Victorian culture—one that names a distinctly Victorian pathology of compulsive writing, but that alludes also to the widespread epistemic hope that writing could render objectively the internal and subjective experiences of individuals. In a chapter devoted to Victorian graphomania and the three studies that follow (graphology in Jekyll and Hyde, retinal photography in The Beetle, and phonography in Dracula), the project is particularly interested in convergences and correspondences between graphical machines and human bodies. In this study, Victorian technology and Gothic literature emerge as twin registers of the divided self, joined in their shared strategy of externalizing conflicts traditionally understood as invisible processes, but also in the consequent tendency of each uncanny text to expose its ghostly remainders and excesses in the process of trying to contain them

Reimagining the ‘phonographic’ in sample-based hip-hop production: making records within records

‘Reimagining the ‘phonographic’ in sample-based hip-hop production: Making records within records’, deals with the poetics of hip-hop record production making use of originally constructed sample material, rather than previously released phonographic content.¹ The idea behind the research project was borne out of a practical conundrum during the author’s record-label tenure with EMI Music (Greece) as an artist/producer. The national/major-label profile highlighted issues in sample-based music-making in an acute way, illuminating a tangible gap between underground beat-making and mainstream hip-hop practice: the majority of creators who find themselves between the two extremes appear starved of access to raw phonographic sources, with some seeking innovative ways to practice the artform whilst avoiding licensing implications related to copyrighted sample use.² Inspired by the author’s parallel academic career, the examination of the phenomenon has taken the form of a practice-based doctoral research project, grounded in the musicology of record production, and accompanied by an independent instrumental album-creation process, which supplies the applied investigative context. The largely autoethnographic approach relates the personal in creative practice to the larger cultural (aesthetic) phenomenon, and the research is further supported by interviews with expert practitioners, as well as phonographic (aural) and literary analysis. The theoretical and practical findings drawn out of the research illuminate an unexamined practice with profound impact upon popular music culture. The research narrative is therefore capable of reshaping our understanding of creative beat-making in the flux of a shifting legal and pragmatic landscape. Furthermore, the non-linear, juxtaposed, and arguably metamodern dimensions of the practice readdress current/historical debates about Hip Hop, putting sonic materiality at the forefront of the discussion, and challenging the methodological strategies deployed thus far for the study of contemporary, electronic, and Afrological music forms. As such, there is an identifiable need for a thorough exploration of, and theorising upon, this form of record production practice. From Dr. Dre, through to De La Soul, J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, Boards of Canada, Statik Selektah, Marco Polo, Griselda Records, and Frank Dukes, sample-based hip-hop producers have creatively renegotiated the landscape surrounding sample use through alternative production approaches. These techniques deploy the creation of interim sampling content for subsequent use in what can be described as a form of ‘meta’ phonographic process: an innovative phenomenon with important creative implications powering some of today’s biggest hits and—arguably—an evolutionary strategy facilitating the future development of the genre (and sample-based music as a whole). In the aesthetic pursuit of what makes a newly created source ‘phonographic’ in the context of sample�based Hip Hop, the project addresses the way in which we consider how the sonic past interacts with the music present, and extrapolates upon the way in which such a musical practice may mirror a metamodern zeitgeist in other arts, and culture as a whole

Sound maps matter:expanding cartophony

In this article I investigate online sound mapping practices, taking cartophony – the coming together of cartographic and sonic activities – as an important contribution to emerging ways of thinking and practicing mapping. I first develop a typology of approaches to cartophony, before moving on to reveal the normative tendencies of online combinations of sound and mapping through an analysis of three platforms: Freesound; audioBoom; and Radio Aporee. Showing how in different ways each of these platforms supports an approach to sound mapping that favours pinning high fidelity, indexical audio-recordings to a seemingly neutral base layer, I question what is glossed over through this approach, while also considering how visual and sound-based strategies for communicating about places illuminate and resonate with one another. Discussing some more experimental online sound maps, I highlight the value of such projects in their current form, and argue for the continued expansion of cartophonic practice

Audiovisual research collections and their preservation

The basic problem of primary audio and video research materials is clearly shown by the survey: A great and important part of the entire heritage is still outside archival custody in the narrower sense, scattered over many institutions in fairy small collections, and even in private hands. reservation following generally accepted standards can only be carried out effectively if collections represent critical mass. Specialised audiovisual archives will solve their problems, as they will sooner or later succeed in getting appropriate funding to achieve their aims. A very encouraging example is the case of the Netherlands. The larger audiovisual research archives will also manage, more or less autonomously, the transfer of contents in time. For a considerable part of the research collections, however, the concept of cooperative models and competence centres is the only viable model to successfullly safeguard their holdings. Their organisation and funding is a considerable challenge for the scientific community. TAPE has significantly raised awareness of the fact that, unless action is swiftly taken, the loss of audiovisual materials is inevitable. TAPE’s international and regional workshops were generally overbooked. While TAPE was already underway, several other projects for the promotion of archives have received grants from organisations other than the European Commission, inter alia support for the St. Petersburg Phonogram Archive, and the Folklore Archive in Tirana, obviously as a result of a better understanding of the need for audiovisual preservation. When the TAPE project started its partners assumed that cooperative projects would fail because of the notorious distrust of researchers, specifically in the post-communist countries. One of the most encouraging surprises was to learn that, at least in the most recent survey, it became apparent that this social obstacle is fading out. TAPE may have contributed to this important development

Remote sensing of wetlands

The concept of using remote sensing to inventory wetlands and the related topics of proper inventory design and data collection are discussed. The material presented shows that aerial photography is the form of remote sensing from which the greatest amount of wetlands information can be derived. For extensive, general-purpose wetlands inventories, however, the use of LANDSAT data may be more cost-effective. Airborne multispectral scanners and radar are, in the main, too expensive to use - unless the information that these sensors alone can gather remotely is absolutely required. Multistage sampling employing space and high altitude remote sensing data in the initial stages appears to be an efficient survey strategy for gathering non-point specific wetlands inventory data over large areas. The operational role of remote sensing insupplying inventory data for application to several typical wetlands management problems is illustrated by summary descriptions of past ERIM projects

Constructing the space of visual attention

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2012.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Page 180 blank. Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 168-171).This thesis explores the nature of a human experience in space through a primary inquiry into vision. This inquiry begins by questioning the existing methods and instruments employed to capture and represent a human experience of space. While existing qualitative and quantitative methods and instruments -- from "subjective" interviews to "objective" photographic documentation -- may lead to insight in the study of a human experience in space, we argue that they are inherently limited with respect to physiological realities. As one moves about the world, one believes to see the world as continuous and fully resolved. However, this is not how human vision is currently understood to function on a physiological level. If we want to understand how humans visually construct a space, then we must examine patterns of visual attention on a physiological level. In order to inquire into patterns of visual attention in three dimensional space, we need to develop new instruments and new methods of representation. The instruments we require, directly address the physiological realities of vision, and the methods of representation seek to situate the human subject within a space of their own construction. In order to achieve this goal we have developed PUPIL, a custom set of hardware and software instruments, that capture the subject's eye movements. Using PUPIL, we have conducted a series of trials from proof of concept -- demonstrating the capabilities of our instruments -- to critical inquiry of the relationship between a human subject and a space. We have developed software to visualize this unique spatial experience, and have posed open questions based on the initial findings of our trials. This thesis aims to contribute to spatial design disciplines, by providing a new way to capture and represent a human experience of space.by Moritz Philipp Kassner [and] William Rhoades Patera.S.M