Sound Installation Research Articles

Listening to the Anthropocene: A Queda do Céu

Abstract This article discusses the algorithmic design and implementation of A Queda do Céu, a sound installation and kinetic sculpture related to the Soundlapse project. In it we provide an overview of the project and go on to describe the main computational challenges related to the installation, which included a variety of real-time processing, interpolation, and mapping algorithms. We contextualize the work in relation to regional ecological and political debates, as well as the global climate crisis. In doing so, we echo other sound and field-recording artists in proposing that artworks have an important function as experimental arenas in which new technological applications can be probed and where new modes of listening can be investigated, reconfigured, and exercised. In closing, we lay out an overview of the current challenges being tackled by the Soundlapse project, specifically the development of a refined version of the sonic time-lapse method that incorporates machine learning routines and user-defined spatialization capabilities.

Review of Contemporary Sound Installation Practices in Québec

Continuing a trend of publications investigating sound art within a specific geographical context, this paper proposes an original view of the sound installation practice in Québec. This study is part of a research project aiming at building new theoretical and practical tools for the documentation of such artworks. In this paper we present the outcomes of the first phase and its connection with the bigger picture of the project, which is the questioning of the relevance of spatial audio recordings with six degrees of freedom (6DoF) for mediating the capture of knowledge relating to the sensory experience of a work. During the first phase, we developed a conceptual descriptive framework based on a mixed-methods approach, top-down and bottom-up, consisting in a systematic review of literature paralleled with a categorization of contemporary sound art production in Québec based on publicly available documentation. This process led to a formal and quantitative depiction of the Québec scene, which aims to guide both the selection of case studies for the next phases but also to be part of the conceptual tools for investigating the sensory experience of these works. This quantitative depiction of the scene will thus foster a qualitative investigation of the sensory experience of sound art installations and the knowledge that may be lost in standard written documentation practice with an original methodological framework.

Plant Steaming Concrete Staining

Seed Scarification: Serious Taking is a light, seed, and sound installation. Few hours after the activation of the installation in an art venue, an unplanned kinetic event takes place that is marked by a sonic loud bang. At an instance creating a division in time: one segment that spans the moment before the event; the second one being the perceived change of the aftermath. A composed photo blends both moments into a fictitious here and now. This happening is discussed in this essay from a primarily experiential stance, focusing on air, atmosphere and being.

The Soundlapse Project: Exploring Spatiotemporal Features of Wetland Soundscapes

Abstract This article discusses an interdisciplinary project aimed at highlighting the acoustical heritage of wetlands by means of field recordings and a novel time-lapse montage method. The authors discuss a site-specific sound installation that was designed using original wetlands field recordings, live processing and spatial audio multichannel reproduction. The discussion focuses on spatial and temporal features of different types of recorded wetlands soundscapes. Future developments of this project will consider the implementation of a standalone spatiotemporal application, to be used in the context of virtual reality applications, game audio and interactive dance performance.

The Politics of Urban Silence

The sound artwork “The Politics of Urban Silence” investigates how the sonic vibrations of protests shape the collective consciousness of citizens. To achieve this aim, the literal vibrations of demonstrations in Athens against the economic crisis were recorded in January 2017. Sound as a vibrational energy has the capacity to run through human bodies and connect them regardless of their social background and their intentions. The acoustic space and the relations that produced it shape the structure and the boundaries of social and political space. The sound of protests is mostly noise that is generated by heterogeneous practices such as screams and songs. But after the protest noise became a strong acoustic memory and the centre of the city was left quiet and silent. This silence was full of vibrations (literally and metaphorically) that reverberate across Athens and interacted with political bodies. This sound artwork explores the sonic expressions of political bodies during and after a demonstration and suggests vibratory models that has to do with noise, silence and the political engagement of listening. This sound installation shows how silence becomes a political stance.

“Sonic Spaces for the Stray”: (Dif)Fusing Dis-location in Sound Installation and Performance

This project examines subjectivity and its embodiment through the application of interactive electronics within sound installation and performance. It employs a merging of theory, method and practice that has not been fully researched to date and which represents a valuable addition to sound performance and electroacoustic composition. My artistic research focuses on an ongoing series of improvisational/compositional experiments, moving between a dedicated workspace and sound production studios where I will work with acousticians, engineers, and programmers. The aim is to develop gestural/embodied approaches for applying interactive electronics within sound performance and fixed-media composition—mining tensions between failure and fluency; and diffusion strategies that highlight correspondences between embodiment, sound and space—emphasizing tensions between absence and presence. Foundational research includes studying methods and applications for investigating spatialization and psychoacoustics, employed by artists including Maryanne Amacher. I will also study concepts/methods developed by artists such as George E. Lewis, focusing on interaction between algorithmically-based technology tools and physical gesture in musical improvisation. This research also engages with Julia Kristeva’s psychoanalytically-based writing on abjection and the sublime, grounding my studio-based research in theoretical inquiry that engages with subjectivity and embodiment. Supplementary research will address psychoacoustics, aural architecture, and spatialization theory and technologies. The outcome of the project will be twofold: a body of sound installations and performances demonstrating an interactive approach to addressing relationships between the body, materiality, sound, space and situation; and a set of reflective writings that articulates the poetics and affective aspects of this multi-layered inquiry. The completed project will offer new knowledge production in the field of artistic research, and transmission of interdisciplinary knowledge to creative practitioners.

Interrogation Room

Interrogation Room

Crying Sea, The Sound Installation: Artistic Considerations for Coexistence between Human and Technology

As the discourse on Anthropocene grows, this exploratory research investigates the interrelationship and interconnectivity between humanity and technology by analyzing a sound art installation created by the author. <italic>Crying Sea</italic> is a sound installation that uses plastic wastes collected from the shore to create symbolic narratives and artistic experience connecting humans, objects, and nature through interactive digital technology. In this installation, the audiences are guided to walk over the wastes, and the sounds created by the footsteps are recorded in real-time, which then are distorted and amplified into disturbing sounds through speakers filling up the room. In analyzing this artwork, three theories from technological, philosophical, and ecological backgrounds were used; specifically, Bernard Stiegler’s pharmakon theory, Dona Haraway’s cyborg manifesto, and Timothy Morton’s dark ecology theory. A common factor revealed from all three theories by analyzing the <italic>Crying Sea</italic> is that humans, technologies, and all other entities within nature are interconnected and resonated. The awareness of this recursive relationship allows us to consider sustainable balancing.

Applying interactive technology to design an innovative interactive sound installation for sustainment of the Din-Tao culture

ABSTRACT The Din-Tao troupe is the leader of the temple-fair parade; however, the related culture is declining due to rapid social changes. In this study it is tried to combine interactive technology and the Din-Tao culture to design an innovative interactive sound installation, helping to promote the inheritance of the culture. After a literature review, principles for designing such an installation were derived. The desired installation was constructed accordingly with drum sound used to trigger generations of graffiti drawings and background music of Din-Tao troupes. Utilization of the installation was observed, followed by interviews with the participants. The collected data were evaluated to check the effectiveness of the installation, leading to the following conclusions: (1) the use of this installation is a new way for participants to experience the Din-Tao culture; (2) the approach of combining interactive technology with the Din-Tao culture enhances the development and sustainment of the culture; (3) concretization of drum-beating sound into graffiti drawings of Din-Tao troupes encourages the participant to contact the related culture; (4) real-time multimedia feedbacks of graffiti images and Din-Tao music help to attract visitors to participate; (5) presenting Din-Tao activities interactively by the installation helps to increase people<apos;>s interest in the Din-Tao culture.

Ecologies of Sound with Regard toArrhythmia

The most recent practices in sound art have emerged as pre-eminent spaces in which to question the interaction of sound with its environment. Accordingly, in this article, I envisageArrhythmia, the sound installation by Bosch and Simons with Kostyrko (2019), as a device that helps to outline a horizontal sound ecology. This approach, which takes as its starting point the sound and material vibration in its entirety, implies a positive acceptance of an ontological continuity between the human and the non-human. This, in turn, implies that issues such as biopolitics cannot be reduced to the human realm. With this in mind,Arrhythmiaemerges as a new kind of singular entity from which relationships with the environment can be conceived in a non-fragmented way.

Digital Cybernarrative: "The Brain Opera" by Todd Mahover

The article is devoted to the application of new technologies of the digital era in modern opera. The phenomenon of cybernarrative is analyzed, which creates special forms of representation of a conditional plot in an opera theater, or representation of the main idea. As a special form of cybernarrative, an analysis of the instrumentation and fundamental ideas of the Brain Opera by American composer and inventor Tod Mahover is proposed. This experimental composition combines both conceptual ideas of comprehending the basics of human thinking and attempts to present brain impulses as musical material that makes up the stochastic variable composition of the opera. Special attention is paid to interactivity, in which the listener pre–communicates with various interfaces - electronic toys that allow him to develop his creative energy and see it as an element of composition in the Opera of the Brain. The conclusion from the conducted research is that the idea of a cybernarrative has become fundamental for the project, which has received a cybernarrative representation. The treatise of the famous cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky "Community of the Mind" and the element of creative energy of the recipient – visitor of the sound installation serve as the basis of the narrative, while the plot of the libretto itself is conditional and it is hardly read through the journey through the so–called "wilds of the mind". Modern opera uses cybernarrative as a communication system, in the field of which all the latest technologies are included. At the same time, the content of the opera is blurred, which turns out to be variable. There are both positive and negative sides to this: the involvement of the public in the creative process, which Tod Mahover strongly encourages in his concept of the Brain Opera, helps to overcome passive perception, however, the composition ceases to be a complete form and turns into an open work – work in progress.

Covid Conversations 5: Robert Wilson

World-renowned for having made a totally new kind of theatre, director-designer Robert Wilson first astonished international audiences in Paris in 1971 with Le Regard du sourd (Deafman Glance) and then with his twenty-four-hour Ouverture at the first edition of the Festival d’Automne in 1972. He also refers in this Conversation to Einstein on the Beach, premiered at the Avignon Festival in 1976, as another example among more of France offering him a home before he eventually founded the Watermill Center in 1992 on Long Island in the State of New York. Watermill, a laboratory for multidisciplinary creativity, opened its doors to the public in 2006 and is a focal point of the Conversation as a whole. Wilson’s immediately pre-Covid-pandemic production of The Messiah by Mozart was premiered at the Mozartwoche Salzburg in February 2020 and performed subsequently in Paris during a brief Covid ‘lull’ in September of that year. Discussion of this pivotal work leads to reflections on the opera productions that he had staged not so long before it, emphasizing the elements fundamental to his compositions – light, time, space, architecture, and silence. The Conversation, followed by audience questions addressed to Wilson, took place live online and on Facebook on 4 December 2020 as a prelude to the Festival Internacional Santiago a Mil in Chile, which opened on 3 January 2021. This was the Festival’s twenty-eighth year, but in a significantly restricted form due to Covid-19. A sequel to the Santiago interchange, also online but this time located in Paris, occurred on 17 September 2021. It resumes dialogue mainly on the Watermill Center’s broader cultural and social goals in the present and for the future, noting as well Wilson’s then current activities in Paris: a heavy schedule of four productions from the beginning of September to the end of December 2021, and a sound installation planned for 2022.Maria Shevtsova gratefully thanks the Fundación Teatro a Mil and its General Director Carmen Romero for their initiative in inviting Robert Wilson with her to converse publicly as part of the Festival a Mil, and for permission to edit the transcript for publication in New Theatre Quarterly. Thanks are due to interpreters Margit Schmohl and Jorge Ramirez, and to Maria Luisa Vergara for organizing the audience participation included below, as well as to Alfonso Arenas, former Coordinator of the Education and Communities Area at the Theatre Foundation a Mil. Warmest gratitude is extended to Robert Wilson for his generosity in all sorts of ways, and not least for finding the time to continue the Conversation in Paris. Thanks for their kind support to Nuria Moreno, Production at Teatro Real Madrid, Christof Belka, Executive Director of RW Work Ltd, Clifford Allen, Director of Archives of the Watermill Center, and Leesa Kelly and Noah Khoshbin, curators of the 2021 outdoor exhibition Minneapolis Protest Murals at the Crossroads Summer Festival held at the Watermill Center. The exhibition presented 190 public artworks from the 900 boards of the Minneapolis Protest Murals which were created organically in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd on 25 May 2020. Special thanks for their gift of images are given to photographers Lucie Jansch, Javier del Real, Kristian Kruuser and Kaupo Kikkas, Lovik Delger Ostenrik, and Martyna Szczesna. Kunsang Kelden and Maria Shevtsova transcribed this Conversation in two parts. Shevtsova, Editor of New Theatre Quarterly and author of Robert Wilson (Routledge, 2007; updated edition, 2019) edited and annotated the combined transcript for publication.

Strained listening: sensing underwater noise pollution in Calder Harben’s ‘Bodies of Water’

In 2017 the artist Calder Harben (b.1986) produced a sound installation titled Bodies of Water, which engages with the increasing violence of underwater noise pollution. In this immersive installation, participants encounter looped recordings of low-frequency noise pollution in a dimly lit gallery space. The work of art asks visitors to imagine the experience of marine species whose lives are dramatically disrupted by the noise produced by ships and vessels used for extractive activities, shipping commercial goods and recreational purposes. In her article, Chanelle Lalonde explores how Harben’s work ethically engages with the issue of water and noise pollution not merely by bringing attention to it, but in its development of a listening practice that requires reckoning with the limitations of the human sensorium. Bodies of Water, Lalonde argues, demands a process of continuous straining; a mode of listening that is not extractive, but one that embraces unfamiliarity.

Editors’ Note: Sound and Affect in Times of Crisis ★ ★ ★

Editors’ Note: Sound and Affect in Times of Crisis ★ ★ ★

Dead voices and lost sounds: an imagined sonic history

A project description of a sound art installation and interactive performance presented as part of the Up Close Festival in New York City in the winter of 2019/2020. The article is authored by the creator and director of the piece, Adrienne Kapstein. Created for an all-age audience, the piece was a unique, relational and socially engaged experience that merged sound art, live performance, illusion, technology, and audience participation. Designed to be completed in partnership with members of the community it sought to serve, the piece invited participation from every audience member through multiple and varied means of engagement.

On Designing, Composing and Performing Networked Collective Interactions

In this article, we discuss some of our research with Local Area Networks (LAN) in the context of sound installations or musical performances. Our systems, built on top of Web technologies, enable novel possibilities of collective and collaborative interaction, in particular by simplifying public access to the artwork by presenting the work through the web browser of their smartphone/tablet. Additionally, such a technical framework can be extended with so-called nano-computers, microprocessors and sensors. The infrastructure is completely agnostic as to how many clients are attached, or how they connect, which means that if the work is available in a public space, groups of friends, or even informally organised flash mobs, may engage with the work and perform the contents of the work at any time, and if available over the Internet, at any place. More than the technical details, the specific artistic directions or the supposed autonomy of the agents of our systems, this article focuses on how such ‘networks of devices’ interleave with the ‘network of humans’ composed of the people visiting the installation or participating in the concert. Indeed, we postulate that an important point in understanding and describing such proposals is to consider the relation between these two networks, the way they co-exist and entangle themselves through perception and action. To exemplify these ideas, we present a number of case studies, sound installations and concert works, very different in scope and artistic goal, and examine how this interaction is materialised from several standpoints.

Project Review: SwampScapes

Project Review: <i>SwampScapes</i>

Hacking the Medium: Shaping the creative constraints of network architectures in multiplicitous media artworks

In this article we discuss our practice-based research into effective architectures and creative workflows for creatively coding massive multidevice light and sound installation artworks. We discuss the challenges of working with networked multidevice systems and illustrate these challenges with examples of the type of content that one may wish to display on these systems. We then consider how the structuring of a creative framework can strongly influence how an artist approaches the creation of such work, eases the process of creative search and discovery and reduces the time cost and risk of solving technical problems of architecture design. We take a design perspective on how to make effective creativity support tools and also consider a holistic perspective on creative practice that attempts to satisfy creative ideals grounded in the reality of practice.

Personæ: Users’ evaluation of a music technology education project

‘Personæ’ is an interactive large-scale space sound installation designed by the students of the music technology classes of the ‘V. Gambara’ music high school in Brescia (Italy). The activities that led to the conception and realization of the installation were part of ‘The Discovery of Interactive Spaces’ project, a set of extracurricular workshops organized by the authors of this article between spring 2019 and winter 2020 with the support of the Italian National Operation Program (PON). At the end of January 2020, the installation was presented during a public event and an evaluation questionnaire was administered to 79 visitors. The purpose of this research is to assess how the public, students, parents, teachers and classmates received the ‘Personæ’ installation, and the technology integration within regular study curricula. While the majority of visitors have well received the artistic and communicative value of the installation, the questionnaire reveals that there is not a similar uniformity of agreement on some aspects of technology integration in school curricula.

This is a Language Warning!

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; “To be brought up with a language, be it Welsh or any other minority language, is to share a sense of close fellowship with other speakers of that language. To have an almost ‘hidden history’ of allusion and collective memory. To understand, as one grows older, the fragility of that culture and to feel a sense of custodianship towards it”.&#x0D; Bala, 2020&#x0D; Veronica Calarco’s PhD exhibition showed lithographs, silkscreen prints, paintings, and a large sound installation emanating from prints which had been woven into basket forms. The title ‘This is a Language Warning!’ was taken from double j, an Australian radio broadcast, and subtitled ‘Visualising an Endangered Language as Realized Through the Notion of Country.’&#x0D; Calarco’s topic highlighted the politics of endangered and minority languages and how they are consumed and colonized by a dominant language of a more powerful ethnic group – in this case the English language. The two languages which Veronica featured are an endangered Australian Indigenous language named Gunnai/ Kŭrnai, the language of her native homeland, and Welsh, the language of her adopted homeland. All the images reflected her exploration of these two languages through names, words, myths, and the natural world.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;