Sounding Place, Performing Knowledge: the exploratory and the performative in the soundscape composition Resounding Reverie

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the balance between performative and exploratory actions in soundscape composition through a consideration of the author’s fixed media composition, Resounding Reverie. Soundscape composition, particularly in this case, is characterised as an embodied practice expressing both performative and exploratory practices. The creative processes used in making Resounding Reverie show that through embodied interaction with a particular acoustic space, and using audio technologies and attendant gestures as prosthetic practices, the composer initiated exploratory actions that both expressed his habitus and made room for new acoustic discoveries through exploratory ‘groping’ to establish a form of contact with the affordances of this nexus of ‘aural architecture’, technology, and agency. An mp3 recording of Resounding Reverie may be found at the following link: https://andrewczink.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/t1_resounding-reverie_mp3.mp3