PhD Thesis (2014)

This commentary to the PhD portfolio examines spatial aesthetics in immersive sound worlds.

Abstract

This research investigates the process of “opening out” spaces with sound as an approach to sonic arts practice, investigating the spaces that sounds articulate, reveal and imply in our encounter with them. It positions spatial aesthetics as a key consideration at each stage of the creative process and connects approaches to spatiality in sonic arts practices with contextual considerations drawn from, for example, phenomenological accounts of spatial and sonic experience, human geography, architecture and acoustic ecology. The portfolio consists of seven sonic artworks and two collaborative projects that each engage with these ideas from a different perspective, exploring a number of applications, contexts and outcomes in the investigation. This accompanying commentary discusses these works, providing an introduction to the portfolio followed by a discussion, in the subsequent chapters, of the practices explored and developed in the research process.

Read the thesis here.

Affective Spatialitites in the Acousmatic Arts (2012)

Paper presented at the WFAE Conference The Global Composition in Dieburg, July 2012. Published in the conference proceedings.

Abstract

This paper presents an investigation into how we may position the concept of affective spatialities as a key aesthetic element in the context of the acousmatic arts. This is approached through an exploration of the suggestion that the listener may feel a sense of presence in the environments articulated through and by acousmatic art works. The nature of this “presence” is explored with reference to Gernot Böhme’s work on the concept of atmosphere, resulting in the suggestion that, in the experience of an acousmatic art work, any sense of our being-in the environment it articulates is inherently linked to our awareness of our state of being-in that environment – how we feel there. This allows us to consider the notion that a “world” may be brought forth in aesthetic experience of acousmatic spatiality, bringing into question the way in which we conceive of the acousmatic situation – through the eyes of deprivation or the ears of potentiality?

Masters Thesis (2011)

This thesis examines sonic atmospheres, spatial affect and the experience of presence in the virtual acoustic space.

Abstract

This paper investigates the concept of affective spatialities in the acousmatic arts, by means of an exploration and exemplification of the theory that the listener may experience a sense of presence in the environment of the acousmatic work (the virtual acoustic space) which is inherently linked to their awareness of their state of being there. The claims and concepts of this theory are investigated in particular in relation to Gernot Böhme’s aesthetic theory based on the concept of atmospheres, and are developed specifically in relation to auditory experience. The value of this theory as an approach to listening, and as a direction for contributing to the discourse on acousmatic spatiality is exemplified through a discussion of a personal listening experience of Jeph Jerman’s Albuquerque Hotel Room.

Read the thesis here.