Mellanrum: towards an entangled audiovisual practice
(2022)
author(s): Julius Norrbom
published in: Research Catalogue
This artistic research project is a document of an entangled audiovisual practice in progress. With a generative approach and thinking in systems applied to modular synthesizers and procedural computer graphics the aim is to blur the line between the process of generating sounding material and the process of generating visual material. The project represents a move from writing and performing fixed compositions towards designing and improvising with systems that output open-form pieces in real time. Through experiments with new tools and techniques based on theories and other influences, and through reflections upon these experiments, two pieces/concepts have emerged alongside the foundation for a reimagined practice. To share the journey, material and knowledge that led to these pieces and the conclusion; I have stopped writing music and started designing networks, an exposition has been constructed. You are invited to browse, scroll, click, watch, and read this non-linear representation of the project in any order you see fit.
Rediscovering the Interpersonal: Models of Networked Communication in New Media Performance
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Alicia Champlin
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
This paper examines the themes of human perception and participation within the contemporary paradigm and relates the hallmarks of the major paradigm shift which occurred in the mid-20th century from a structural view of the world to a systems view. In this context, the author’s creative practice is described, outlining a methodology for working with the communication networks and interpersonal feedback loops that help to define our relationships to each other and to media since that paradigm shift. This research is framed within a larger field of inquiry into the impact of contemporary New Media Art as we experience it.
This thesis proposes generative/cybernetic/systems art as the most appropriate media to model the processes of cultural identity production and networked communication. It reviews brief definitions of the systems paradigm and some key principles of cybernetic theory, with emphasis on generative, indeterminate processes. These definitions provide context for a brief review of precedents for the use of these models in the arts, (especially in process art, experimental video, interactive art, algorithmic composition, and sound art) since the mid-20th century, in direct correlation to the paradigm shift into systems thinking.
Research outcomes reported here describe a recent body of generative art performances that have evolved from this intermedial, research-based creative practice, and discuss its use of algorithms, electronic media, and performance to provide audiences with access to an intuitive model of the interpersonal in a networked world.
Urban sonic acupuncture: sonic strategies for the city space
(last edited: 2022)
author(s): Josué Moreno Prieto
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
This thesis accompanies the artistic projects I have implemented during my doctoral research as a reflection and summary. My practice ranges from traditional music composition to other forms of music-making, such as electroacoustic music, live electronics, generative art, and sound installations.
Urban Sonic Acupuncture is an artistic practice that intervenes in public, urban spaces with sound composition elements that aim to alter the atmosphere of a place through subtle, almost imperceptible resonances, textures, and other forms of sonic infiltration. The practice consists of applying sonic pressure points on sites that affect the aural awareness and attention thresholds of the listeners. Interestingly, the altered attention thresholds remain effective even after they left the site where the acoustic intervention happens.
Aural Weather exists without the need for an acoustic intervention, as a pre-existing acoustic atmosphere, upon which the urban sonic acupuncture practitioner acts. We can also understand Aural Weather as an organising principle: placing sounds in space rather than time. This principle promotes a listening mindset where the audience takes responsibility for the temporal narrative. The development and implementation of my the different Urban Sonic Acupuncture art-works build on this crucial concept.
Between 2016 and 2021, four artistic projects and several parallel test cases were carried out to explore these notions, illuminating aspects of public and urban spaces through sonic interventions. The first project was an indoor public space sound installation in a winter
garden, the second one took the form of a museum concert promenade and resonance installation, the third project was an outdoor installation inside an underpass tunnel, and the fourth project presented a sonic perception exercise as a radio programme.
Within the processes of making these works, I found that the best results often arose from invisible, non-object-based interventions. Combined with ‘lowercase’ ambiguous sounds that blend with the environment, this approach helped me to achieve non-disruptive ways of infiltrating daily urban life and influencing site perception.
The projects sparked conversations among the general public, passers-by, and the local art scene. This non-disruptive approach to sonic public-space interventions has shown to be effective for infiltrating daily life. Aware of the existing aural weather, the transient audience is invited to a conscious urban sonic dwelling.
CONNECTING THROUGH CODE
(last edited: 2020)
author(s): Tim Sayer
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
300 word supporting statement
The output from this practice-led research submission is the generative soundtrack, which accompanies the interdisciplinary work Breath Pieces, conceived by Rosanna Irvine. This output has led to the generation of new knowledge in the area of creative collaborative, through it’s novel use of a live coding environment, as a means of mediation between artists with differing levels of coding/technical literacy.
The contextual information submitted in this exposition includes:
• a video which provides an insight into the how the
generative soundtrack was developed using a reduced
parameter space negotiated by the artists.
• the evolution of the piece, by supplying all 12 versions
of the code, from initial sketches to finished product.
• extensive documentation of the discourse, which
supported the development of this new working
methodology.
The work, performed at Tramway Glasgow in June 2018, was commissioned by Creative Scotland, with support from The Work Room, City Moves, Cove Park and Scottish Dance Theatre. Proposals for a conference presentation and short paper entitled ‘Connecting through code: Using code as a medium to construct a generative musical score by collaborating artists with differing levels of coding literacy’ has been submitted to AISB 2020 symposium on Computational Creativity (CC@AISB’2020) St Mary’s University, Twickenham and the Journal of Web Semantics (JWS) special issue on Semantic Technologies in the Creative Industries.
Within the arts there is sometimes a form of cultural mystique, which surrounds the practice of computer programming, which can form an exclusion zone for artists who have not acquired the requisite vernacular to engage in discourse or practice in this field of endeavour. This research suggests a model of collaboration that uses code as a means of formalising mutual understanding and could potentially be applied to any collaborative context to bridge a gap in coding literacy between the collaborators.