How to turn urban noise into music

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 99-103).As human civilization devises ever more powerful machines, living among them may become more difficult. We may find ourselves surrounded by incidentally created sounds and noises which are out of synchronization with our momentary needs and discordant. Currently, legislating noise pollution is the only articulated solution and clearly it is not very effective. Our impression of sound, however, may be mediated and manipulated, transformed into something less jarring. So far, Walkmans and sound canceling headphones have done this, isolating us from noise but also from one another. In their place, a next generation headphone system is proposed which integrates environmental sound into a personal soundscape. It allows one to synthesize music from environmental sound using a number of digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms to create a sonic space in which the listener remains connected with his or her surroundings, is also cushioned from the most harsh and arrhythmic incursions and may also be drawn to appreciate the more subtle and elegant ones.by Noah Vawter.S.M

Tape music with absolute animated film : Prehistory and development.

Volume 2 consists of a film and slides (Apply direct to York to obtain)SIGLELD:D48862/84 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Purely Sonorous: The Rhetoric of Sound in Twentieth-Century Music

This thesis investigates a common aesthetic-hermeneutic tendency in discussions of twentieth-century and contemporary music: that of legitimating particular repertoires as exceptionally sound-oriented or sound-based—in contrast with other, usually older music, which is figured as subordinating sound to musical language. In this thesis, I call this tendency ‘sonicism’. I analyse the rhetoric of sonicism on the level both of discourse and of compositional technique. The analysis is comparative: modernist concert music, electroacoustic/electronic music, and sound art are considered. These repertoires, although apparently disparate in their aesthetic and technical premises, imply a common conceptual and metaphorical framework, based on the distinction between ‘sound material’ and its ‘organisation’—hence the rhetorical strategy of hypostatising sound to characterise an advocated approach, while abstracting quasi-linguistic entities and relationships from sound to characterise other music. I argue that beliefs regarding the priority of sound in a given repertoire are determined above all by assumptions about musical organisation. Moreover, in realising their sonic ideals, composers tend to adopt organisational signifiers that are also common to apparently disparate positions. These signifiers negate aspects of traditional musical grammar but tend gradually to be conventionalised in their turn. These core arguments are presented in Chapter 1 and developed through the rest of the thesis. Chapters 2 and 3 are case studies focusing on the discourse, techniques, and reception of two composers associated with particular archetypes: that of the mutual independence of ‘sounds themselves’ (the early Morton Feldman), and that of the journey inside a three-dimensional sound (Giacinto Scelsi). The analysis then turns to electronic music and sound art, highlighting the continuity of both discourse and organisational signifiers. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the present-day situation, in which the emancipation of sound is regarded as a fait accompli, but the standardisation of signifiers is still not widely acknowledged

The memory of text - the text of memory: a study of selected works by James Joyce

This study focuses on the development of memory with regard to the textual evolution of Joyce's works from Dubliners to Ulysses. My hypothesis is centered on the idea that in the Joycean narrative, structures of memory are fabricated as much through aspects relating to textual organisation as to the narrative representation of character consciousness. The basis of my analysis is formed by close readings of a selection of Joyce's works. A critical framework against which to read Joyce's engagement with the "textualisation" of memory processes is provided by some key works associated with the "cultural climate" within which Joyce worked, such as texts by Freud and Bergson. In reviewing the recent critical debate, this study sets out to establish the theoretical setting of the topic and relates it to the practice of textual analysis. My approach throughout chapters two to seven delineates a conceptual framework which differentiates between character memory and textual memory. I consider Joyce's works in terms of various paradigms of remembering and forgetting through a series of critical readings. The objective is to trace the poetics of memory in Joyce, and to show how processes of recollection and forgetting can be read in terms of writing and of textual production

Breaking the Script - Fashion Critiques and Conversations

The role of the fashion designer is broadening and shifting and in our academic as well as our roles as creative practitioners we feel a responsibility to develop new tools and resources for coming generations. A critical reflection on the fashion system- informed by a wide spectrum of roles and reaching from student to industry- is emerging in isolated pockets and on the fringes. We now need to nurture and connect these through the educational structures and institutions in which we work. From our conversations and critique themes, challenges and mostly questions are emerging. We have identified that we miss fashion owned language to describe the new paradigm as well as updates in fashion methodology. As educators we experience the disconnect between students expectations of their education and curriculum, the fashion industry and their future roles within it.We want to share our thoughts in progress through an evolving and participatory manifesto - not as finished document but rather as live provocation towards re-imagining the very structures and material of fashion education - in this case assessment criteria/learning outcomes for fashion education

Creating for the Stage and Other Spaces: Questioning Practices and Theories

Abstract (ENGLISH)-This volume brings together most of the interventions by artists and scholars of the Third EASTAP Conference (European Association for the Study of Theatre and Performance), which should have been held in Bologna from 27 February to 1 March 2020, scheduled among the events of the VIE Festival 2020 and the activities of the Department of the Arts / DAMSLab. When everything was ready, the Conference, the last part of the Festival and the DAMSLab programme were suddenly canceled due to the first restrictions related to the pandemic. Following those sudden and unexpected events, the need to leave memory of the project arose from many quarters. It was thus decided to propose a publication which, while significantly differentiating from the original structure designed for the Conference, explicitly and directly refers to it, remaining an exceptional and significant testimony of the state of studies on theatre and performance in the pre-Covid era. The Conference plan envisaged two macro-sectors which concerned, one, the practices and theories relating to the composition of the texts; the other, the practices and theories relating to the composition of performative events referable to the methods of scenic writing. The volume takes up this polarity by framing it in a different division of relations, which explains – thanks to the groupings and their titles both the relations between text and text and those between sector and sector. The most consistent chapters are dedicated to performance and post-dramatic textuality: Questioning performance: theories and practices (17 reports) and Creating text for the stage: theories and practices (21 reports). The other chapters then come to place themselves in the force field described by these main groupings. Perfomer's body: the dancer, the actor (6 reports) and Creating for other spaces: landscape, sound, multimedia (7 reports) are ideally framed in the polarity of the performace, where to highlight the centrality of the body and the relational dynamics activated by spaces, sounds, and new technologies. Collective creations and community plays (7 reports), on the other hand, focuses on performance and new textuality. __________ Abstract (ITALIANO)-Il presente volume riunisce la maggior parte degli interventi di artisti e studiosi del III Convegno EASTAP (European Association for the Study of Theatre and Performance), che avrebbe dovuto tenersi a Bologna dal 27 febbraio al 1 marzo 2020, calendarizzato tra gli eventi di VIE Festival 2020 e le attività del Dipartimento delle Arti/DAMSLab. Quando tutto era ormai pronto, il Convegno, l’ultima parte del Festival e il programma DAMSLab sono stati improvvisamente annullati a causa delle prime restrizioni legate alla pandemia. In seguito a quei repentini e inattesi eventi, è nata l’esigenza da più parti avvertita di lasciare memoria del progetto. Si è deciso così di proporre una pubblicazione che, pur differenziandosi sensibilmente dalla struttura originaria pensata per il Convegno, a esso si richiamasse esplicitamente e direttamente, restando eccezionale e significativa testimonianza dello stato degli studi sul teatro e la performance nell’era pre-Covid. Il piano del Convegno prevedeva due macrosettori che riguardavano, l’uno, le pratiche e le teorie relative alla composizione dei testi; l’altro, le pratiche e le teorie relative alla composizione di eventi performativi riferibili alle modalità della scrittura scenica. Il volume riprende questa polarità inquadrandola in una diversa ripartizione delle relazioni, che esplicita – grazie ai raggruppamenti e ai loro titoli – sia le relazioni fra testo e testo che quelle fra settore e settore. Alla performance e alla testualità postdrammatica sono dedicati i capitoli più consistenti: Questioning performance: theories and practices (17 relazioni) e Creating text for the stage: theories and practices (21 relazioni). Gli altri capitoli si vengono quindi a posizionare nel campo di forze descritto da questi raggruppamenti principali. Perfomer’s body: the dancer, the actor (6 relazioni) e Creating for other spaces: landscape, sound, multimedia (7 relazioni) si inquadrano idealmente nella polarità della performace, dove evidenziare la centralità del corpo e le dinamiche relazionali attivate dagli spazi, dai suoni e dalle nuove tecnologie. Collective creations and community plays (7 relazioni) si orienta invece fra performance e nuova testualità