There are 18 in total.

This is my online portfolio for LICA372: Sound As Practice.

This course has allowed me to explore the avenues of the sonic arts and it’s theory, prompting me to consider my own exploration into the sound world. We had discussions in class, workshops and field recordings which enabled me to expand my understanding of the sonic arts.

My sound experiments and Sound walk – campus can be heard in the folder from Soundcloud.

 Our first assessed task was to create a work that responds to the theme of Sound and Space – Mine is entitled – Glass.

Initially, I attempted to work with echo and thought that a church would be an interesting environment for this theme. However, when attempting to complete my sound experiments within this environment it didn’t give me the effect that I had hoped.

My sound experiments involved working with water, and the ways in which water changes the noises depending on its confinement. This is especially true when the water is contained in glass. I then decided that the ‘space’ could be the glass rather than the environment surrounding the glass. However, I still needed distance to create an environment.

I used different volumes of water in multiple glasses before striking them with a piece of metal attached to a string from high above. This created an abundance of different tones at random times as I would swing the pendulum at random. I then started to explore different ways in which the sound would be affected by water and glass.

Reflecting on my work, I feel like experimenting with space using different environments successfully would have created a more cohesive narrative of the sound in a space piece rather than just a series of sound experiments.

 

They are available to listen in the folder at the top of the page.

Rim

Fizz

Tone tapping distance

Glass

Tone changing glass as filling

Random tone 1

Water from a height

The second assessment that we had to complete was a 9 minute sound art exploration which is broadcasted on Resonance Fm, focusing on a theme of our choice.

We met as a group and decided on the title ‘The Briefcase’.

We felt this title could be interpreted differently and therefore was and open-ended, catering for each of us individually.

Personally, I wanted to focus on exploring the narration of a narrative and adding layers of sound to build a sonic world in the listener’s mind.

I started to consider all the connotations that the word ‘briefcase’ has. Quickly I developed this concept of concealing and that the briefcase can really contain anything inside, however its exterior portrays a very business – like professional tone.

I developed this idea and started to create a story of a husband-and-wife in which the wife disobeys the husband’s rule of never looking in his briefcase. She discovers a hidden identity, wake dress and heels.  The piece continues to explore the aftermath of this discovery. I approached this project almost like a theatre production. I wanted to consider the elements of portraying emotion whilst having moments of suspense. I attempted to execute this effect through sound.

I recorded myself (playing the wife) using rhythmic breathing and layering of different sound parts within an environment to create the overall effect of emotion, in this case which was overwhelming sadness and panic. In the plot this was when the wife had entered a hairdresser’s salon where her husband works.

I then realised that I wanted to play with portraying the wife’s perception of her sound environment. I therefore attempted to distort the sound of the hairdressing salon to show the listeners that the wife, Sarah, was panicking and upset. Through sound distortion I then was able to create the betrayal of a certain intense emotion.

If I was to able to work on this project for an extended period of time I would push this idea of distortion of sound to create emotion and would explore how this could be done in the reverse, a positive effect relaying happy emotions.

 

During our discussions in class we considered different ways of recording sound. We then discussed a method called the graphic score, the representation of music though the use of visual symbols outside the realm of traditional music notation.

I decided to use the graphic score to depict my work, however I felt like this would be a challenge due to the fact I did not have instruments.
However, when I attempted this, I realised the colours and symbols could change depending on the emotional and vocal tone change. Therefore, still creating a complex graphic score.

Graphic Score – Sound in space:

Graphic Score – Briefcase:

When taking part in the discussions in class and upon studying the article, Radio, Art, Life: New Contextsby Helen Thorington, it opened my eyes to a whole new sonic scape.

I found the concept of subverting media conventions by presenting something other than familiar radio forms, very thought provoking.

What I found particularly interesting was the fact that people then started to be interested in work being produced by “artistically minded” people who do not classify themselves as artists such as engineers, and academics. They re-purpose “objects from the everyday world embedding unfamiliar functions in them.” The example the article gives is a “boxing bag played meditative tones when struck”. Here this object has a secondary function which could be an instrument in a music ensemble or rhythmic sound scape.

This idea fascinated me and I started to analyse the different environments that I found myself in and thinking about how objects can create rhythms and sonic soundscapes.

“We want you to see the world in a new way” Sodrkok

This inspired me to start experimenting with everyday inanimate objects to create an interesting unusual sonic soundscapes. For example, a lighter, cereal, a pickle jar and a lotion bottle.

These can be heard in the folder at the top of the page.

When reflecting upon different kind of sound installations, one grabbed my attention the most, due to the effect it created.

An artist called Stephen Shearer created a piece called Toolshed (2003). Heavy metal guitar was played intermittently extremely loud inside a small aluminium shed which then, due to the vibrations shook the structure. In this case the sheer volume of the music physically affected the object. The aesthetic of this was described as according to Shearer, the shed was where “a teenager might go to sniff gas” (Campbell 2005: 97; see also Prince 2007). The shed apparently gave off club like dance aesthetic which contrasted with the formality and plainness of the appearance of the installation creating a literal and underlying tension.

I was extremely interested in this idea of creating and playing with atmosphere. I then started to consider what sounds created this tension. When considering Toolshed, the volume at which the heavy-metal is played and the size of the shed meant that the impacted on each other largely. One experiment I did was recorded a friend playing drums from behind a wall and on top of stairs. It is interesting to consider how environment has an impact of sound. If i had more of a choice, for a sound instillation, I would have the drums be played very loudly in a child’s pink blow up tent. The harsh sound of the drums would then contradict heavily with the aesthetic of the delicate pretty tent. I feel that listeners could then deduct a meaning and message maybe concerning childhood troubles.

‘Drums’ and other experiments can be heard at the top of the page.

Another crucial reading within the course was called “making spaces feminist contacts in sonic arts”. I found this extremely interesting because it analyses women within the sonic art world and how they present themselves.

There is a section in this essay called “L’ecriture Feminine Musicale”, which illustrates the idea that if the sonic artist is a woman they will therefore make “woman’s or feminine music”. This is a theory of Irigaray and Cixious. This theory encourages women to refute masculinist histories. It pushes artists to “write the truth of their bodies” (Blyth, 2004). The concept of feminine music was meant to be a subversive political point to illustrate the embrace of femininity.

She analyses Westerkamp’s Breathing Room, composed in 1990, as an example of écriture feminine musicale. The reading explains that Westerkamp explores her “subjectivity through an insistence of her bodily presence through her work. As such she writes with her body to write her self, as Cixous contends: ‘woman must write her body’ (Blyth, 2004:33) In this piece the binary juxtapositions are explored through technology / nature, man / woman. This composition is concerned with the artists subjectivity in relation to the sonic environment.

This concept really resonated with me and I felt very strongly about embracing the beauty of femininity and not conforming to men’s ways to gain power and respect. I feel that Cixious is telling women artists that if we refute the role that patriarchy imposes, we can thrive through femininity and be proud of the fact we are different from men.

I therefore took this basic principle of embracing this idea and creating “feminine music”. At first I was really passionate about creating something feminine but then got wrapped up too much in the kind of classic feminine sounds.

I therefore went back to basics and considered what femininity personally meant to me, which is the idea of softness and being soothing.

I then created a sound work off this theme that can be listened to called FEM and then attempted a masculine sound scape called M.