Acoustemological Investigation: Sound Diary #Tehran
(2022)
author(s): Ali Mousavi
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
Acoustemological Investigation: Sound Diary #Tehran is a research-based project that is being developed as part of my ongoing Ph.D. research. This is accomplished by employing sensory methodology as a research tool for observing and analysing architecture and urban design. Art and architecture have always seemed to me to have the potential for social change and the improvement of the existing social order. They can be emancipatory, assisting in self-development, promoting social justice, and even, in small ways, changing the world we live in. As a result, artists and architects engage in activities of innovation and creativity in the hope of articulating their dreams and building a better future for the benefit of their communities. The living environment and places where people spend their time tell a story about who they are and their vision of the future. Art and architecture are social practices that are inextricably linked to the rest of social life. In this regard, this exposition is an attempt to observe, study, and analyse the process of urbanisation in Iran, specifically the housing construction in the Pardis Phase 11 suburbs of Tehran.
The interest in the sensory dimension of Pardis Phase 11 serves as the starting point for this artistic practice-led research project. The project employs sensorial methodologies such as acoustemology to investigate the area and urban transformations caused by concepts such as ‘modernisation’, ‘development’, ‘progress’, and ‘globalisation’. The work evolves through a large collection of media content in the form of field recordings made at the Phase 11 site. The project’s goal is to create a discursive sensory environment in order to generate a contemplative and in-depth reflection of a barren land transformed into an urban setting.
The Role of Sound as a Component of Urban Experience
(2021)
author(s): Greta Pundzaite
published in: Research Catalogue
The Role of Sound as a Component of Urban Experience is an audio-video essay that approaches urban sound as study material for sensorial analysis. An experiential experiment is carried when retransforming/playing with sensorial components of an urban dweller. Research focuses on the record of urban sound in relation to image and its proximity to cinematic/cinematographic experience. Playing with sensorial components reveals not only their influence on our ever-day perceiving of urban space but also the aesthetical nature of casual walks in the city. In other words, an analytical approach to urban sound reveals how cinematic everyday urban experience is or how cinema's sensorial base finds itself in the one of an urban dweller.
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.
DESIGNING WITH URBAN SOUND
(last edited: 2019)
author(s): Nina Hällgren
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
The Licentiate thesis
D E S I G N I N G W I T H U R B A N S O U N D -
Exploring methods for qualitative sound analysis of the built environment, examines the constitution and qualitative characteristics of urban sonic space from a design-oriented and practice-based perspective. The act of lifting forth and illuminating the interaction between architecture, the creation of sound and a sonic experience aims to examine and develop useful tools and methods for the representation, communication and analysis of the exterior sonic environment in complex architectural spaces. The objective is to generate theoretical and practical knowledge within the field of urban sound planning and design by showing examples of different and complementary ways of communicating and analyzing sound than those which are commonly recognized.
Sound in the city is an intricate phenomenon that affects us at several levels, both health-wise and socially. At the same time, sound has cultural and functional implications by mediating important information connected to identity, security and spatial orientation. Unfortunately, current quantitative methods are not sufficient for describing, analyzing and managing urban sounds in regard to this complexity. Complementary methods of representation and analysis need to be developed that will bring out important information - gathering it and making it visual - about the constitution, character and quality of urban sonic space that is possible to utilize alongside today’s calculation and measurement-based methods within such areas as architecture and urban planning practices.
The licentiate thesis has its foundation in the analogue and well-recognized tool-box of the architect, such as various forms of documentation and sketching techniques, mapping, inventory and site-analysis, etc., when exploring tools and strategies for the communication and analysis of the exterior urban sound environment along the long and busy street Hornsgatan in Stockholm.
In addition to exploring various methods for capturing and describing the qualitative constitution of the exterior sonic environment and some of the basic factors affecting it, this thesis sets forth a general model for qualitative sound analysis of a problematic, yet well-utilized, urban sonic space.
The licentiate thesis exists as both a print and a digital version that complement each other and thus should be read, listened to and scrutinized in parallel.