Inside the Loop: The Audio Functionality of Inside

The manner in which soundscapes evolve and change during gameplay can have many implications regarding player experience. INSIDE (Playdead in INSIDE. Released on Microsoft Windows, Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and iOS, 2016) features a gameplay section in which rhythmic audio cues loop continuously both during gameplay and after player death. This paper uses this aspect of the soundtrack as a case study, examining the effects of looping sound effects and abstract musical cues on player immersion, ludic functionality, and episodic engagement. The concept of spectromorphology proposed by Smalley (Organised Sound 2(2):107–126, 1997) is used to analyse the way in which musical cues can retain ludic functionality and promote immersion in the absence of diegetic sound design. The “musical suture” (Kamp, in: Ludomusicology: approaches to video game music, Equinox, Sheffield, 2016) created by continuously looping audio during death and respawn is also examined with regards to immersing the player within an evolving soundscape

Six propositions on the sonics of pornography

Pornography (and all its contentious pleasures, contested politics and attendant problematics) is enjoying a fresh wave of academic attention. The overwhelming majority of these studies, however, focus on the visual discourses of sexually explicit material. This risks the sonic dimensions of pornography being overlooked entirely. Yet porn is anything but silent. This speculative article maps out some of the ways in which the sounds of pornography (and the pornography of sound) might be approached in the analytical context of gay male culture. Not only do the texts of porn contain assorted sounds (dialogue, soundtracks, non-verbal noises of participation, background and accidental audio), they also seek to prompt sounds (not least the non-verbal noises pornography seeks to elicit during the moments of its consumption) and sometimes depend on sound alone (telephone lines that allow access to recorded narratives or ‘live’ chat). Pornography speaks in particular accents, it mobilizes particular music, it dances to particular tunes and it relies on the pants we hear as much as the pants we see. If queer cultures have their own distinctive worlds of sound, then the sonic armouries of porn play a prominent role within them

Junkie love : romance and addiction on the big screen

This article investigates the filmic construction of two disparate but intertwining cultural practices: those engaging in the life-affirming rituals of romantic love and those performing the potentially self-destructive rituals of hard drug consumption. Discussing a number of key feature films from the (mini) genre “junkie love”, it aims to show what happens when elements of mainstream romantic drama merge with the horror conventions of the heroin addiction film. Drawing amongst others on Murray Smith’s theory of “levels of [spectator] engagement” and Greg Smith’s concept of the “emotion system”, the article concludes that junkie love films, using tropes of the romantic tragedy in the tradition of Romeo and Juliet, present a more complex and nuanced approach to drug addicts than the predominantly condemnatory media coverage—one that arguably invites the spectator’s understanding and compassion

Interactive visual music

How can Visual Music be composed and presented in such an engaging way that it will turn spectators into participants? How to connect a youthful, twenty-first century audience who are keen to update their Instagram story with Visual Music? Visual Music is an art form, which is “an equal and meaningful synthesis of the visible and audible” (Lund & Lund 2009 149) and “is typically non-narrative and non-representational” (Evans 2005 11). Visual Music is often presented as cinema. Cinema audiences are generally considered to be passive spectators, whose “reactions are pre-programmed by the director, crew, cast and writer” (Mackintosh 2003 2). This paper highlights the nexus between, to use McCall’s (2004) terms ‘the cinematic, the sculptural and the pictorial’, with a focus on creating interactive Visual Music installations

An Amphioxus Gli Gene Reveals Conservation of Midline Patterning and the Evolution of Hedgehog Signalling Diversity in Chordates

Background. Hedgehog signalling, interpreted in receiving cells by Gli transcription factors, plays a central role in the development of vertebrate and Drosphila embryos. Many aspects of the signalling pathway are conserved between these lineages, however vertebrates have diverged in at least one key aspect: they have evolved multiple Gli genes encoding functionally-distinct proteins, increasing the complexity of the hedgehog-dependent transcriptional response. Amphioxus is one of the closest living relatives of the vertebrates, having split from the vertebrate lineage prior to the widespread gene duplication prominent in early vertebrate evolution. Principal findings. We show that amphioxus has a single Gli gene, which is deployed in tissues adjacent to sources of hedgehog signalling derived from the midline and anterior endoderm. This shows the duplication and divergence of the Gli family, and hence the origin of vertebrate Gli functional diversity, was specific to the vertebrate lineage. However we also show that the single amphioxus Gli gene produces two distinct transcripts encoding different proteins. We utilise three tests of Gli function to examine the transcription regulatory capacities of these different proteins, demonstrating one has activating activity similar to Gli2, while the other acts as a weak repressor, similar to Gli3. Conclusions. These data show that the vertebrates and amphioxus have evolved functionally-similar repertoires of Gli proteins using parallel molecular routes; vertebrates via gene duplication and divergence, and amphioxus via alternate splicing of a single gene. Our results demonstrate that similar functional complexity of intercellular signalling can be achieved via different evolutionary pathways

Creating and designing the contemporary soundtrack:A case study

Sound is a very powerful tool in contributing to film narrative, beyond merely supporting the visuals. Sound and vision in the context of film provide an audience with varying levels of meaning. In contemporary cinema, there has been a shift in thinking, and the audience is becoming increasingly aware of digital surround sound (DSS) and contemporary production practices. Despite this understanding of the modern soundtrack and the possibilities offered through surround sound and high-quality sound reproduction, Kerins points out that sound could be further explored in terms of aiding narrative. While advancements in technology have led to the narrative burden of film being shared by the soundtrack through voices, sound effects and music, the technology of digital surround allows sound editors, sound designers and sound mixers even greater flexibility for soundtrack creation. Although the general public may not have a thorough understanding of sound literacies, cinema goers not only expect to hear clear dialogues, sound effects and music, but they often also expect to be immersed in the surround sound and to feel the physical sensation of low-frequency effects (LFE). In this chapter I draw from personal insight into the soundtrack creation for both live action and animated film using The LEGO Movie (2014) and The Great Gatsby (2013) as case studies. This chapter explores the roles of screen sound, discussing not only the technology but also the use of the sound space to heighten immersion