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Site Unseen: Perception of Place within
Contemporary Sonic Arts Practices
A project submitted in fulfilment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Atticus Bastow
Bachelor of Fine Art Honours (Sound, Sculpture, and Spatial Practice) – RMIT
Bachelor of Fine Art (Sound, Sculpture, and Spatial Practice) – RMIT
Bachelor of Australian Popular Music – NMIT
Advanced Diploma of Music Performance – NMIT
School of Art
College of Design and Social Context
RMIT University
October 2018
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Declaration
I certify that except where due acknowledgement has been made, the work is that of the
author alone; the work has not been submitted previously, in whole or in part, to qualify for any
other academic award; the content of the project is the result of work which has been carried
out since the official commencement date of the approved research program; any editorial
work, paid or unpaid, carried out by a third party is acknowledged; and, ethics procedures and
guidelines have been followed. I acknowledge the support I have received for my research
through the provision of an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.
Atticus Bastow
10 th October, 2018
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Acknowledgements
Firstly, I would like to thank RMIT University and the School of Graduate Research for their generous
support throughout this project in the form of the Vice Chancellor’s Postgraduate Scholarship. It has
been an absolute privilege to be able to dedicate myself entirely to this research without financial
concern.
I wish to thank my incredible supervisory duo, Philip Samartzis (突っ込み) and Darrin ‘The Dark Lord’
Verhagen (ボケ). Thank you for your support, critical engagement, and total ease of communication.
Your collective guidance throughout this project has helped me to grow and better myself considerably
as both an artist and researcher. It has been an absolute joy to involve you both in this journey. My
thanks extends well beyond the PhD, as you have both been guiding mentors throughout my entire time
in Sound at RMIT, since the halcyon days of the bunker in Building 14.
My love and thanks to all friends and family who have helped me along this journey, especially to those
who have offered their support, wisdom, and observation: Byron Huang Dean, Byron Scullin, Christophe
Charles, Clementine Bastow, David Forrest, Erin Taylor, Helen ‘Dr Mum’ Milte, Liss Fenwick, Martin Kay,
Philip Brophy, Polly Stanton, Robin Fox, Sarah Edwards, Shannon Stanwell, Skye Kelly, Tassia
Joannides, the team at Testing Grounds, everyone involved in Research Exchange past and present,
and the wonderful Tarryn ‘Coach’ Handcock.
Special thanks to my trusted purveyors of consumable therapy: Mr Ramen San, Wonderbao, Red
Sparrow Pizza, Shortstop Coffee & Donuts, RUSU Realfoods, Smith & Deli, Standing Room, Starward,
Glenmorangie, Tokyo Hometown, Lupicia, and Lord of the Fries (until they changed their facon supplier,
a decision that I will never forgive).
And finally, I owe the most sincere thanks to Adrian Sherriff for guiding the beginning of what has
become a decade-long journey in creative research. Your enthusiasm and dedication to the Sonic Arts is
an inspiration I still carry to this day.
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Table of Contents
List of Figures
vi
List of Works
vii
Summary of the Research
1
CHAPTER 1: Introduction
1.1 Clarifications 1.2 Overview 1.3 Research Focus and Methodology 1.4 Aims 1.5 Research Questions 1.6 Arguments & Outline of the Exegesis
2 3 4 7 7 8
CHAPTER 2: Audiovisual Relationships within Atemporal Visual Media
2.1 Overview 2.2 Beyond The Offscreen 2.3 Temporality 2.3.1 Video Games and Temporal Fluidity 2.4 Summary
10 13 18 22 23
CHAPTER 3: Sound as Virtual Place
3.1 Overview 3.2 Space, Place, and Environment 3.3 Definition 3.3.1 Anamnesis 3.4 Ma
24 25 28 30 33
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3.5 Generation 3.5.1 Mystery 3.6 Summary
36 39 41
CHAPTER 4: Creative Practice Reflection
4.1 Overview 4.2 Location Study No. 7
4.2.1 Motive 4.2.2 Process 4.3 Hewn 4.3.1 Motive 4.3.2 Process 4.4 Wardens 4.4.1 Motive 4.4.2 Process
4.5 Envoys 4.5.1 Process 4.6 Summary
42 43 46 47 52 52 55 61 61 64 68 70 74
CHAPTER 5: Conclusions and future research
5.1 Introduction 5.2 Key Findings 5.3 Research Questions Revisited 5.4 Future Research and Applications
76 77 78 81
Bibliography 85
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List of Figures
Fig. 1 Location Studies 1 - 5 (exhibition detail) Fig. 2 Shift (exhibition detail)
Fig. 3 Location Study No. 7 (exhibited at Phantasmagoria)
Fig. 4 Location Study No. 7 (prototype) Fig. 5 Recording for Hewn at Toyota
Fig. 6 Hewn (installed at Testing Grounds)
Fig. 7 Contact speaker studio detail (Hewn)
Fig. 8 Testing Grounds site Fig. 9 Wardens
Fig. 10 Site context for Wardens
Fig. 11 Envoys (early studio documentation)
Fig. 12 Geoff Robinson artist reference
Fig. 13 Backlit vending machines visual reference (Envoys)
43 45 48 50 54 55 56 59 62 63 68 69 71
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List of Works
Location Study No. 7
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DynqhQQYe0c
Photo: http://atticusbastow.art/location-study-no-7/
Hewn
Photo: http://atticusbastow.art/#/wrought-and-hewn/
Wardens
Video: https://youtu.be/r9hxR1fFwrg
Photo: http://atticusbastow.art/#/wardens/
Envoys
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXcZleaQP6o
Live performance/development: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni-ohGegLNs
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Summary of the Research This practice-based research investigates the ability of sound to influence perception of place. It seeks to understand the ways in which sound acts as a modifier of, or as a generator of ‘placial’ sensing. It acknowledges the academic work undertaken to date in relation to the topic, but identifies that extant academic analysis has been largely informed by cinematic audiovisual practices. This leaves little scope for investigation outside of the immediate field of screen culture, and similarly dictates understanding of creative development within a broader sonic arts practice. With that in mind, this research acknowledges such approaches, and in turn moves to recontextualize them into a broader sonic arts installation practice. This provides a platform for examination of an expanded range of perspectives, with regards to perception and immersion in audiovisual experience. The research subsequently finds that issues surrounding ‘the offscreen’ define the keystone of conceptual expansion, and outlines new terminology to aid in doing so. This provides the framework for an expanded definition of placial sensing, arbitrated through sound. Moreover, it identifies sound itself as a ‘virtual place’. This is understood as a cognitive intermediary space, post-hearing, and pre-listening. In doing so, it posits perception-as-interpretation as the key actuator of both placial sensing, and greater audiovisual engagement with an artwork.
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Chapter 1:
Introduction
1.1 CLARIFICATIONS
For the purpose of clarity within this research, the following distinctions shall be made:
● Listening is distinct from hearing - the former is a lifetime practice that depends on
accumulated experiences with sound; a combination of complex affective, cognitive, 1
and behavioral processes. The latter is solely a biomechanical detection of sound via 2
vibrations and pressure changes.
● Sound is divided into two categories: ‘sound objects’ (acoustical representations of
material things), and ‘sonic effects’ (the emotional and psychophysiological influences
sound objects have on those who experience them). 3
● Space and Place are understood as separate terms with distinct meaning. Space is a
construct dealing directly with materiality, physicality, and acoustics. Place instead
refers to sense of space that is “an attribution of meanings, feelings, sensory
perceptions and understandings”. 4
● ‘Experiencer’ is used to describe a participant in an audiovisual experience. It
substitutes the frequently, and equally incorrectly catch-all term ‘viewer’. This
substitution is a response to the unfortunately remaining problem of contemporary art
discourse insufficiently acknowledging or theorizing the sonic arts within the realm of
1 Pauline Oliveros. “The difference between hearing and listening | Pauline Oliveros | TEDxIndianapolis” (video), 2015, accessed 2019-01-16, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QHfOuRrJB8 2 Kelby Halone et al., "Toward the establishment of general dimensions underlying the listening process" in International Journal of Listening , 1998, 12, DOI: 10.1080/10904018.1998.10499016 3 Jean François Augoyard et al, Sonic Experience: A Guide to Everyday Sounds (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006), 4 4 Setha Low, Spatializing culture: the ethnography of space and place (New York: Routledge, 2017), 12
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the so-called visual arts. ‘Viewer’ and ‘listener’ are separate terms with singular and 5
specific meaning, and are used in this research as such.
● In any of my own descriptions of a person, wherein gender is undefined, ‘they’ shall be
used as the primary pronoun. Any situations otherwise within this research, where
specific gender is attributed in a case where no actual context for assuming gender is
provided, exist only in referenced material by authors other than myself.
1.2 OVERVIEW
The dualism of mind and body is a philosophical problem that has existed for nearly two and
half thousand years. As such, defining the place of thought has been a natural extension of
the problem: where are we when we think? A more apposite inquiry arises from philosopher
and cultural theorist Peter Sloterdijk’s question: “Where are we when we listen to music?” 6
Though Sloterdijk’s query is grounded within traditional musicology, it can be reduced to a
more relevant and applicable form as the simpler question, where are we when we listen ?
This reduction provides a fundamental investigative basis for this practice-based research.
My own practice of listening has its beginnings in music performance, succeeded by chapters
in vocational score and sound design for moving image media, before presently arriving at the
site-specific/site-responsive sonic arts installation focus that so drives this research. It is with
this history and combination of sonic arts foci that this research is able to offer original
explication as to the place of listening, given the distinct insight into spatial sonic relationships
offered by each discipline. Although the conceptual framework of the research is structured
around audiovisual relationships and principles of immersion within cinema, the main focus
across both the theoretical and practical components is driven by a curiosity to explore how
sound itself acts as a virtual space. This intersection between sound and spatiality therefore
offers a unique position from which to question the mechanics of the listening experience,
and how it may manipulate perception of the environment around us. The questioning, at its
5 Caleb Kelly, Gallery Sound (New York, Bloomsbury Academic: 2017), 7 6 Peter Sloterdijk, “Wo sind wir, wenn wir Musik hören?” in Weltfremdheit (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1993), 294
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most simple, is as follows: If sound itself is a place, where is it? What is it? How is it formed?
How does it interact with a greater ‘placial’ perception? 7
1.3 RESEARCH FOCUS AND METHODOLOGY
This project is practice-based research, and has evolved through a range of methodologies.
Early approaches were focused around an interrogation of sound within cinematic examples
of immersive experiences. This came as the result of prior work and research experience in
vocational score and sound design for the moving image, and was further informed by my
ongoing practice as a musician and sound artist. The latter influence marked an important
point of inception for the research due to a history of investigating spatial and placial
relationships in my sound works overall. For example, within my 2016 release BCSC EP, I explored capture of existing place within a soundscape studies framework - the source
material for the album was recorded in the Victorian high plains during a residency program at
the Bogong Centre for Sound Culture. Within a more conventional musical setting, I have
maintained a focus on spatial activation in performative contexts. In Swarm & Murmuration
(2015, 2013) I employed 40 smartphones as sound emitters to create an immersive swarm of 8
sound, the work able to be sonically rebalanced by audience members through moving
themselves or letting the sound emitters move around them. My solo performances otherwise
have historically employed multichannel playback systems, often in unconventional
arrangements. Within my musical practice, the conventional sonic frame of unidirectional
performer/audience focus is continually intentionally avoided, allowing the sonic performance
itself to be explored as a place of listening. This sustained focus on sound and spatiality
within my parallel musical practice directly influenced an eventuating focus on the
mechanisms of sound within offscreen spaces, a place within moving image media where
sound breaks free of frame and affords perceptual manifestations of its creation alone. This
investigation of sound within offscreen spaces directly marked the transition into a
practice-based research framework, wherein the practical component was oriented within an
7 Placial is to place as spatial is to space; of, or relating to place. 8 Performed at MONA FOMA Festival, and Liquid Architecture festival of Sound Art, respectively
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installation-based format, whilst maintaining the methodologies of sound from within the
frameworks of moving image media. This combination prompted the investigation of the
merits of cinematic principles of immersion transposed to an installation-based sonic arts
context as outlined within this thesis. Works contemporaneous to this transitional period
began as highly conceptual experiments with layering of placial representation, as well as a
testing of the limits of immersion. The works themselves consisted of installation-based
presentations of sound and sculpture, and were based on a critique of materials and placial
identity, often examining industrial processes through artefact. Drawing on my understanding
of cinematic audiovisual principles, I would create the works intuitively then judge and
examine them thereafter. I also created moving-image versions of the installations as a way of
comparing and contrasting the compositional elements of the works in both cinematic and
installation-based contexts. Importantly, I found that whilst the works were conceptually
sound in a critical fine arts context, in practice they violated the cinematic covenant I had
used to develop them, and ultimately had failed in a traditional cinematic ‘suspension of
disbelief’ context. In pursuing active perceptual engagement I had unwittingly forgone the
necessary passive perceptual engagement required for suspension of disbelief. As a result, I
turned my attention to the merits of this violation. A strict avoidance of moving image media
thus released the project to allow for innovative development within expansion of offscreen
space.
As these examples of works were dealing entirely with static visual media, sound acted as the
primary narrative conduit. This also revealed sound to be a generative component of the
work, in that it prompted a creative response from the participant. This resulting sense of
passive activity catalysed an investigation into sound itself as a placial element. The
investigation explored cognitive intermediary space through the lens of the Japanese concept
of Ma , ‘mythical space’ as defined by geographer Yifu Tuan, as well as neuropsychological 9
influences such as anamnesis, misattribution, and amodal completion. The findings from 10 11 12
9 Yi-fu Tuan, Space and Place : The Perspective of Experience (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977), 99 10
An effect of reminiscence in which a past situation or atmosphere is brought back to the listener’s consciousness - Augoyard et al, Sonic Experience , 21 11 David Huron, Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation , (Cambridge, Mass; London: MIT, 2006), 137-138
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this investigation were key to my development of three fundamental concepts: expanded
perceptual space, abstracted perceptual space, and sound as virtual place.
To gain a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms of these new concepts required a
shift in the focus of the practical component of the research from installation-based to
site-responsive and/or site-specific. This shift represented a change from an interrogation of
sound existing absolute to attendant environment, to an examination of how sound influences
perception of established environment. As a result, the respective artworks responded
directly to findings in the research in their developmental process. A consideration of the
failings of the installation-based works led to an incorporation of tonal elements into the
compositions for the site-responsive/site-specific works. (This was a result of
tonally-prompted emotional influence being a largely unincorporated element in the early
works.) The inclusion of harmony in the sonic component of these artworks afforded greater 13
breadth of investigation into the full potential of sound to influence perception of place. This is
due to the inherent emotional loading of musical sound as opposed to atonal sound.
Furthermore, the lattermost artwork employed an iterative method in order to analyse the
effect of superimposed soundscape on a number of different physical environments.
12 The special case of completion behind occlusion - “Shape Contour Perception”, Zililab, accessed 2018-03-23, https://zililab.psych.ucla.edu/research/shape-contour-perception/ 13 As pertaining to chordal structure, relationships, and practical combination in music.
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1.4 AIMS
The main agenda of this research is to develop an understanding of the ways in which sound
influences perception of place. To achieve this, I aim to:
1. Investigate cinematic principles of immersion and audiovisuality transposed into a fine
arts context.
2. Explore the concept of sound as a virtual place, and develop a thorough philosophical
understanding of its associated experiential value.
3. Apply critical theory and analysis from a range of fields (including philosophy,
psychology, film theory, acoustics, and neurobiology) to examine the influence sound
has on perceptual engagement with place and environment.
1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The research questions guiding this study are as follows:
I. In what ways can cinematic principles of immersion and audiovisuality inform sound
theory and practice in a fine arts context?
II. How can these principles of immersion influence perception of place via sound?
III. How might this be explored in the context of my arts practice?
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1.6 ARGUMENTS & OUTLINE OF THE EXEGESIS
Chapter 1 presents the starting motivation for this research project. It identifies the original
impulses, the aims, research questions, and objectives in undertaking a study of the influence
of sound on perception of place.
Chapter two provides a systematic overview of cinematic audiovisual principles of immersion
understood within a fine arts context. By so doing, it outlines the merits of audiovisuality when
dealing with static visual media as the entirety of the viewing experience. The theoretical
framework of chapter two is centered around an exploration of the offscreen and its
metadiegetic value. I examine the experiential differences between cinematic and gallery
settings in order to establish the limits of perceptive manipulation. I then explore video games
as an audiovisual experience intermediary to cinema and gallery, wherein sound stabilises
nonlinear temporality. I argue sound as a narrative conduit exists entirely within the offscreen
within the context of static visual media audiovision. By so doing, I posit ‘expanded
perceptual space’ and ‘abstracted perceptual space’ as expansions of delimited cinematic
terminology.
Chapter three explores cognitive intermediary space in order to define the concept of sound
as virtual place. It follows an evolution of inquiry from definition, to generation, to the resulting
effect on the experiencer. Definition is established through a delimiting of the concept of
Liminality. The definition is then extended through readings of the Japanese concept of Ma , and mythical space. I then discuss generation via the concept of ‘perception as interpretation’
as defined by Salome Voegelin. The resulting effects of sound as virtual place are then
understood by means of the neuropsychological concepts anamnesis, and amodal
completion.
Chapter four is a chronological overview of the series of major works that form the basis of
this research. The first two artworks — Location Study No. 7 and Hewn— test the viability of
suspension-of-disbelief within an installation-based sonic arts context. Location Study No. 7
is structured around a concept of placial layering, employing sampled organic artefacts and
industrial soundscape studies to denote evocations of place. The artwork also employs a dual
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headphone/speaker playback system, so as to create multiple sonic perspectives within the
same work. Hewn expands the creative methodology within Location Study No. 7 to
encompass the entire installation space as an artwork. Within the space, multiple speaker
types are deployed in a multichannel format to further expand the idea of multiple sonic
perspectives within a single artwork. Text is also included, along with material artefact,
following the established focus on placial layering. Both artworks explore the ways in which
cinematic principles of immersion may be employed within a gallery setting, and what
perceptual extension is afforded by various offscreen emphases. They investigate how the
concepts of expanded perceptual space and abstracted perceptual space within the artworks
afford an imagined placial layering via sound. Both artworks are contrasted to respective
moving-image documentational artworks as a way of highlighting the limits of perceptual
manipulation in the respective media. The next artwork — Wardens— shifts the focus of the
investigation to site-specificity, with an exploration of perceptual extension of pre-existing
place. The artwork itself is comprised of a performative multichannel sound installation, using
small speakers situated underneath a cluster of vending machines in a shopping street in
Japan. The sonic content is comprised of electromagnetic recordings of the electrical fields of
the vending machines, processed to create chordal clusters with which to perform. It explores
the significance of the shift within the place of exhibition from gallery to in-situ, as well as the
influence of musical tonality and harmony on the sonic experience. The final artwork
—Envoys— is then presented. It draws upon the findings inherent within the previous work to
develop an expanded iterative method. The artwork itself is a self-powered multichannel
speaker system, housed within a sculptural art object. The object contains a light, to act as a
sonic and visual beacon for wherever it is performatively installed; for the purpose of the PhD
exhibition, it had visited four separate sites to date. At each site, video and binaural sound are
used to document the object in-situ. This method is used to explore the influence of sound on
a variety of environmental instances.
Chapter five is a presentation of the key findings within the research. It addresses the original
research questions, and in turn summarizes the conclusions of the work. It subsequently
outlines the creative and scientific areas of interest that have been generated during the
course of this study.
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Chapter 2:
Expanded and Abstracted
Audiovisual Relationships
2.1 OVERVIEW
Cinema has played a central role in defining the relationship of sound to visual media. As
cinematic practices have expanded the realm of sound and vision, its aesthetic traditions of
immersion have also been exported to other media. The particular export of interest within 14
this chapter is the meeting of sound and vision within contemporary art, where atemporal
sculptural components form the breadth of the visual experience. This chapter therefore
examines the principles of immersion in cinematic audiovisual experiences, and how they
may be transposed to operate within an installation-based sonic arts framework. The
audiovisual principle of ‘the offscreen’ forms the theoretical basis for this chapter. This is then
expanded through the lens of metadiegesis and focalization, and within a presentation of
video games as an intermediary audiovisual experience where sound stabilises narrative in
instances of non-linear temporality.
The methodology established within this research project evolved out of a previous focus on
vocational score and sound design for the moving image. Prior to this practice-based
research framework, my practical focus was almost exclusively centred on designing sound
for screen-based audiovisual media. As the focus of my parallel studies began to shift into
sonic arts installation practice, the artworks produced investigated an expansion of narrative
beyond the borders of the screen. In this case of this research project, this has largely
14 K.J. Donnelly, “Extending Film Aesthetics: Audio Beyond Visuals”, in The Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics, eds Claudia Gorbman, John Richardson, and Carol Vernalis, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013): 358
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manifested as a pairing of sonic arts and atemporal/non-kinetic sculptural media, in both
gallery-based and site-specific exhibition platforms. Notwithstanding the distinct change of
field, the approach to sonic composition within the new works maintained the methods and
tools used to afford perceptual immersion in cinematic audiovisual experience - a skill set
established within the aforementioned focus of designing sound for screen-based works. The
decision to employ these approaches within a fine arts context was the result of an attempt to
controvert the traditionally critical experiential circumstances often presented within the
‘White Cube’ - a term used by art critic Brian O’Doherty to define the ubiquitous 15
contemporary white-walled gallery space.
The installation-based sound works completed prior to beginning this research project also
share a common bond with the use of atemporal visual media, as both court an embodied
sense of stasis. Aside from the near indistinguishable visual oscillation of some light sources
used within the works, the majority of the accompanying visual media were physically still,
comprised of physical artefacts from the natural landscape such as stone, soil, water, and
plant life, as well as vessels to house the sampled artefacts. This pairing of atemporal and
temporal raises an important question regarding how static sculptural elements are treated in
place of a moving image, considering that the methodology of this research project is heavily
informed by the relationship of sound to moving image media. This presents a wealth of
potential investigation when we consider that atemporal objects do not necessarily need
sound to support them. Granted, the added value of audiovisual experiences is reciprocal, as
sound colours vision much in the same that images influence sonic perception. However, in
cinematic examples the screen remains the principal support of audiovisual perception. 16
Within the cinematic realm, the term ‘suspension of disbelief’ is often used to describe an
immersive experience at its most profound, one such that an experiencer ultimately cedes
their willingness to discredit the verisimilitude of what they are experiencing.
15 Brian O’Doherty, Studio and Cube: on the relationship between where art is made and where art is displayed (New York: Columbia University, 2007): 40 16 Michel Chion, Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 21
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The criteria for suspension of disbelief, as described by neuro-psychoanalyst Norman N.
Holland, are as follows: 17
1. We no longer perceive our bodies;
2. We no longer perceive our environment;
3. We no longer judge probability or reality-test;
4. We respond emotionally to the fiction as though it were real.
As Holland identifies, willing suspension of disbelief may inhibit our ability to distinguish
reality, but it does not nor cannot inhibit our emotions . This, paired with the fact that the 18
brain has a tendency to associate the emotional state with whatever salient stimuli exist in the
environment, results in a base level of passivity expected of the audience within a cinematic 19
experience. As constructed narrative is presented as reality, the audience is afforded
embodiment of what is onscreen through immersive experience. The non-fictional nature of
documentary film poses a question as to how the aforementioned mechanisms operate, if at
all, in such a setting. Though in response I argue the representational nature of documentary
filmmaking is still subject to creative reinterpretation by the filmmaker, and thus can still be
considered fictionalised; the addition of score or soundtrack alone is enough to create
emotional narrative additional to that of the documented content.
Within a non-cinema setting such as a gallery, the idea of suspension of disbelief begins to 20
dissolve when we consider the average artwork in a gallery setting is courting an active
engagement from the experiencer via a constructed prompt for discourse by the artist. There
is, of course, an experiential middle ground within instances of artwork-as-cinema. Featured
as a centrepiece at the National Gallery of Victoria’s Triennial exhibition in 2017, the video
installation Incoming by Richard Mosse was in itself a cinema supplanting the gallery space it
17 Norman N. Holland, "The Willing Suspension of Disbelief: A Neuro-Psychoanalytic View". Lecture, PSYART: A Hyperlink Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts, accessed 8th December, 2017, http://psyartjournal.com/article/show/n_holland-the_willing_suspension_of_disbelief_a_ne 18 Ibid. 19 Huron, Sweet Anticipation , 136 20 As in, a space that is not housing a traditional commercial cinematic experience.
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had been allocated. Other than the presence of a looping timeline, free will within audience
members to enter and leave as they would a non-cinematic gallery space, as well as a lack of
plush seating, all the usual conventions of the cinematic experience were otherwise in place:
blackened walls and ceiling, acoustic treatment and isolation of the space itself, large format
screens, and multi-channel surround sound. Outside of this kind of exceptional instance, in
effect there is nothing to ‘disbelieve’ within a fine arts context. Moreover, without qualitative
survey feedback the level of success by which suspension of disbelief can be measured is
vastly subjectively variable. In place of suspension of disbelief, this research project is instead
concerned with the principles of immersion in cinematic audiovisual contexts, and how they
may be implemented within a transposed setting such as installation-based arts contexts.
These principles of immersion help to establish a framework for manipulation of perceptual
engagement within site-specific sonic arts installations, achieved through shaping of
temporality, narrative, and emotional residue via sound. It is this ability of sound to shape and
change the perception of static visual media that highlights the point of investigation for this
chapter.
2.2 BEYOND THE OFFSCREEN
The cinema and the gallery space each represent highly contrasted approaches to the
presentation of audiovisual media. As Andrew Uroskie describes in his book Between the
Black Box and the White Cube:
“Within the gallery’s brightly illuminated container, the aesthetic spectator navigates a physical
encounter with the space of the object-come-installation in a temporality of their choosing. The cinema’s box, by
contrast, intentionally negates both bodily mobility and environmental perception so as to transport the viewer
away from her present time and local space.” 21
Within a traditional cinematic experience, a viewer’s engagement is mandated by the totality
of the frame and the temporality of the visual narrative. Within a gallery setting, lighting and
21 Andrew Uroskie, Between The Black Box and The White Cube: Expanded Cinema and Postwar Art (Chicago, University of Chicago Press: 2014): 5
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spatial arrangement create a set of conditions that shape a viewer’s experience, yet the
consumption of atemporal visual media such as photography, painting, printmaking, or
sculpture is ultimately arbitrated by the viewer. In such an instance, their personally-allocated
limits of time and visual focus delineate the overall engagement with the artwork. In contrast
to purely visual engagement, the process of listening is much less limited or confined, its
contours uncertain and changing given the spatiality, temporality, and materializing qualities
of sound. Furthermore, the consumption and reception of sound extends beyond the 22
accompanying field of vision into fully spatial three dimensional hearing, a result of
evolutionary reliance on sound-localization acuity to offset the narrow visual field in mammals.
As Caleb Kelly writes: “unbounded, sound presents a freedom not attainable for visual 23
objects, which are confined by lines of sight.” These examples are very much concerned 24
with the immediate, and detail a very present and literal sense of perceptual engagement
within audiovisual relationships. As such, in order to comprehensively describe perceptual
phenomena within audiovisual relationships, we must take into account the fact that
conscious and active perception is only one part of a wider perceptual field in operation.
Advancements in sound technology in cinema over the years have expanded the spatial field
from mono, to stereo, to surround sound, to extreme multichannel formats like Dolby Atmos.
Outside of technological advents, the most significant step for audiovisual relationships within
the realm of the moving image has been a distancing from the necessity to detail and sonify
everything on screen. This expands the capability of sound in moving image media, with a
strong emphasis on suggestion and implication of both activity within, and of the onscreen
environment itself. As the practicality of spatialisation expands within the sonic arena, so too
does the role of score and sound design further toward the sensual and psychological. 25
22 Chion, Audio-Vision , 33 23 Arthur N. Popper, and Richard R. Fay, eds., Perspectives on Auditory Research (New York: Springer, 2014): 277 24 Kelly, Gallery Sound, 20 25 K.J. Donnelly, “Extending Film Aesthetics: Audio Beyond Visuals”, in The Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics, eds Claudia Gorbman, John Richardson, and Carol Vernalis, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013): 369
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Arguably the largest and most important binary within the binding of sound and moving image
is the dynamic relationship between the onscreen and the offscreen. Though despite its
duplex categorization, it is most certainly a relationship more complex than simply what can
or cannot be seen. The world of the onscreen is inherently active, and often quite literal,
invoking ‘synchretic’ pairings of sound and vision. Sonically, the onscreen is occupied 26
primarily by diegetic sound and music. The world of the offscreen is alternatively afforded a
wealthier creative license due to a comparative lack of necessity for direct visual correlation.
Offscreen sound can also be divided further into the categories of ‘active’ and ‘passive’.
Active offscreen sound refers to more direct linear correlations, such as sonifying the
presence of a character before they enter the frame, or perhaps a present relationship
between a direct component of the onscreen world with something that exists off-screen. For
example, in the opening sequence of Ocean’s Eleven (2001), we see the main character in a
prison environment, in discussion with his parole board. Although we cannot see them
initially, the parole board’s presence is implied through the use of active offscreen sound.
These kinds of instances invite a sense of anticipation and engagement with the narrative
from the audience. Passive offscreen sound instead works to create atmospheres that
envelop and create foundations for what is happening on-screen, but does not contribute
directly. Passive offscreen sound imbues context into the character or narrative within the 27
frame. This can occur with reinforcement from the on-screen setting, though just as often
imagination and the theater of the mind are prompted to fill in the blanks. An common
example of this often exists within establishing shots; the audience member sees a shot of a
footpath, parked cars, and shop windows, and hears the sound of an inner-urban street as a
plausible but nonspecific environmental extension.
With passive offscreen sound, the role of sound shifts from an immediate and concrete
supporting of what is onscreen, to a consideration of the greater character, context, and
symbolism of the subject as being expressed and delivered through the medium of sound. In
an arts context, this mechanism activates and materializes an art object through imagined
26 Pertaining to synchresis - “Synchresis”, FilmSound.org , accessed 31st January 2018, http://filmsound.org/chion/sync.htm 27 Chion, Audio Vision , 85
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context. In this instance, the imaginary becomes the mediator against the potential for the
infinitely symbolic within art objects. 28
Greater expanded narrative within audiovisual relationships results in a need for
categorization of these expanded spaces that are being suggested within a fine arts context.
Consequently, the term ‘offscreen’ becomes redundant within any non-screenic audiovisual
setting. In its place, I will be using the term ‘expanded perceptual space’: this defines
extension of temporal, emotional, and spatial perception within a non-screenic audiovisual
setting. This is an important distinction, as it also helps to distinguish between cinematic
examples and installation-based/non-screenic examples within the research hereafter. Further
explanation of expanded perceptual space is afforded via an examination of metadiegesis,
and focalization.
As established, the realm of the onscreen is often signified by diegetic sound and/or music: in
a cinematic example, we may see a car pull up in a driveway, and subsequently hear the
matching sound of crunching tyres, a slight squeal of brakes, and an idling engine. The
offscreen expands the onscreen, either by literal extension of the visualised environment with
localised offscreen sound, or by abstraction with unlocalised offscreen sound. The latter can 29
be further divided into distinctions of non-diegetic and metadiegetic sound.
Non-diegetic sound is defined as sound of which the source is not visible on-screen, nor
implied to be present in the action. Non-diegetic sound is most commonly manifested as 30
score, contributing perceived emotional value ‘empathetically’ or ‘anempathetically’ to the
narrative on screen, without being overtly tied to what is on-screen; the music exists
objectively to the onscreen space, instead of representing the music a character may be
listening to on their car stereo, for example. Metadiegesis takes this idea of added value a
step further, suggesting references and context separate to the immediate world of the
28 Marcella Tarozzi-Goldsmith, The Future of Art: An aesthetics of the new sublime (New York: State University of New York Press, 1999): 138 29 Kim Baston, “Not Just ‘Evocative’: The Function of Music in Theatre” Australian Drama Studies 67 (2015): 15-16 30 “Diegetic and non-diegetic sound”, filmsound.org, accessed 2018-08-06, http://filmsound.org/terminology/diegetic.htm
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onscreen. Metadiegesis itself originates in narratology as a form of secondary narration 31
embedded within the primary narrative, though its use has evolved to describe the effects of
particular unlocalised-offscreen sound.
For example, sound design employed to externalize a subject’s inner thoughts or memories
(perhaps triggered by an event on-screen, yet without direct visual reference on-screen) can
be described as meta-diegetic. 32
With regards to atemporal visual media, metadiegesis forms the basis of any intent to expand
the suggested realm of the art object. This is due to the nature of a static object defaulting to
localised-offscreen even for the most literal sonic correlations. Literary theorist Gérard
Genette’s concept of zero focalization presents that the sonic component of an artwork acts 33
as a narrator in and of itself. The ‘narration’ that zero focalization provides is omniscient in
comparison to the limited knowledge of the character in focus. In an arts context, this extends
the suggestive power of the audiovisual relationship, as sound is thus able to contribute
spatial, placial, emotional, or temporal layering outside of the preordained narrative context of
the art object. ‘Zero focalization’ provides the broadest range of narrative extension, as
opposed to the additional definitions of ‘internal’ and ‘external’ focalization, which place the
narration as equal to, and subordinate to the knowledge of the subject respectively.
Both zero focalization and metadiegesis are extremely useful corollaries to help explain the
role of sound in pairings with atemporal art objects. Though in following with the earlier
establishment of new terminology within ‘expanded perceptual space’, the distinctions of
‘localised’ and ‘unlocalised’ offscreen sound present an additional problem when 34 35
discussing non-screenic examples. As a result, I present the term ‘abstracted perceptual
space’ to define non-screenic extrapolation of unlocalised offscreen sound. This is inherently
distinct to expanded perceptual space and its respective screenic pairing of localised
offscreen sound.
31 Ibid, 7-8 32 Jennifer Van Sijil, Cinematic Storytelling: The 100 Most Powerful Film Conventions Every Filmmaker Must Know (Seattle, Michael Wiese Productions: 2005): 90 33 Gérard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980): 188-89 34 Ibid., 14-15 35 Ibid., 14-15
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2.3 TEMPORALITY
The largest and most obvious discrepancy between temporal and atemporal visual media lies
within the inherent issue of temporality itself. Moving image media is inherently durational,
and in its unfolding presents its own sense of time as an alternative to the everyday personal
temporal experience of a viewer. Considering Holland’s aforementioned criteria for
suspension of disbelief, we can mark this alternative offering of temporality as ‘the fiction’,
even though the durational experience of it is very much a matter of fact. Thus, in a truly
successful immersive experience the experiencer is able to welcome an alternative
temporality as their own. If we then consider the prioritised role for sound within moving
image media principally as a conveyance of meaning, it is then a natural progression to place
the temporality of sound as secondary to that of the vision it supports. In this role, sound
design, dialogue, and score work together to support visual narrative, to provide emotional
colour, or to maintain the visual grammar onscreen. Alternatively, the unique temporality of 36
sound may be offered as one that is separate to the visual narrative it accompanies. In either
role, the contribution of temporality through sound exists in a variety of functions.
The score composed by Hans Zimmer for the film Inception (2010) provides a complessing
filmic example of sound denoting alternate temporality to that implied onscreen. The film itself
is an excellent testbed for temporal play, considering that the narrative itself is wholly
structured around ideas of multiplicities of temporal perception, manifested within shared
dreams (in the film, speculative technology allows individuals to share each other's dream
space). As rationalized within the film’s narrative, each layer of dream entered results in a
smaller fractionalised actuality of time, in relation to real-scale passing of time. Thus, even
though characters in a dreamworld are experiencing time perceived as normal on-screen,
time passes at an extremely slow rate out of the dreamworld. As revealed by Zimmer 37
himself, the score was derived entirely from subdivisions and multiplications of the Edith Piaf
36 Tomlinson Holman, Sound for Film and Television (Massachusetts: Elsevier, 2010): vi-vii 37 ‘Inception’ synopsis - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/plotsummary#synopsis
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song ‘Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien’, featured in the film as ‘the kick’: a tool used by the 38
characters to bring them out of dream states and back to reality. Within the film’s established
‘reality’, the song plays at normal speed, and thus correlates a 1:1 for perception of time
across both sound and vision. The music itself also continually traverses back and forth
between diegetic representation (as a tool for, and heard by the characters onscreen) and
non-diegetic representation (as soundtrack). As the characters progress deeper into the
dream worlds, the score switches roles to refer to the original passing of time in ‘reality’,
realised as an orchestral interpretation of the Piaf song slowed accordingly to the dictating
temporal subdivision of the respective dream world. In this instance, sound has two roles: the
sound design maintains the perceived-as-normal temporality of the characters and their
relative space, through actualization of dialogue, fight sequences, etc, as ‘normal’.
Concurrently, the score shadows and suggests an alternate experience of time to that
onscreen as it abstracts the visual narrative metadiegetically. In examples such as this within
Inception , the score assumes the position of the omniscient narrator with a language of zero
focalization.
This is, of course, a highly specific example of temporal fluidity within an audiovisual
experience. Sculptor Anish Kapoor, in discussing how he approaches perceptual engagement
within his artworks, defines two temporal discourses: as a tool for a creation of passage
through the work, and as a literal elongation of a moment. Michel Chion alternatively 39
identifies three distinct examples: the delta between the visual media’s animation and the
temporality of the soundtrack, temporal linearity as a variable, and the creation of a sense of
imminence to either numerous or no eventualities. This temporal animation that Chion 40
speaks of creates a point of conjecture when faced with atemporal art objects accompanied
by sound, as there is simply nothing animated for the sound to link with and thus imbue a
perception of time. Within the context of atemporal visual media, a loose idea of a moving
image can still be constructed from the notion that the participant’s point of view moves, due
to the release of agency in focus and frame. In essence, this reframes how one visually
38 “Inception soundtrack created entirely from Edith Piaf song”, The Guardian, accessed 2018-08-03, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/jul/29/inception-soundtrack-edith-piaf 39 “Descent into limbo”, Anish Kapoor, tate.org.uk, accessed 2016-08-28, http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/descent-into-limbo-anish-kapoor 40 Chion, Audiovision , 13
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engages with the work in reference to their own personal sense of time. The significant and
overriding caveat within this example is that this is a moving image that is essentially beyond
the limits of control of the artist. Notwithstanding the ability of sound to infer an imagined
temporalization upon static physical materials, the necessary temporal precision required for
the level of control needed in the majority of effective audio-visual techniques disappears
when it is expanded outside the realm of technical precognition within linear timelines. In
order to create any inherent synchronicity within visually-atemporal examples of audiovision,
an artwork must augment its presentation to include visual temporality by other means. As an
example, Darrin Verhagen’s artwork A series of small wire objects (many of them
uninteresting) (2014) used shadow to animate atemporal objects, and by so doing generated 41
a visual sense of temporality to which sonic gesture could bind and create moments of
audiovisual synchronicity. Of course, this particular issue speaks to very literal ideas of
synchronicity within audiovisual relationships, and not all audiovisual experiences require
synchronicity to convey meaning.
The landscape works by filmmaker James Benning present a useful example of a practice
existing in between the cinema and the gallery, with regards to his approach to conveyance of
temporality. His works are screen based video works, and are thus outright ‘moving images’
by default. Yet Benning’s works, particularly Nightfall (2011) provide a useful example of
audiovisuality where temporal narrative is driven by sound, due to the lack of activity in the
visual narrative. The film in question documents the trajectory of late afternoon through to
nightfall, within a covered forest setting. The colour and quality of light changes throughout
the 100+ minute duration, yet the moment-to-moment visual activity onscreen is practically
non-existent. Thus, sound is the primary indicator of instantaneous passing of time, as well as
providing essential narrative context of the onscreen environment. The video installation
Isolation (2012) by sound artist Philip Samartzis is another example of a similar temporal
approach to Benning’s. Isolation presents extremely still settings in Antarctica captured on
video, accompanied by a soundwork. As with a number of Bennings other works, Isolation
does have a significantly larger amount of visual edits, though aside from a change of visual
41 “Soundtracks”, Darrin Verhagen artist website , accessed 2018-03-04, https://www.darrinverhagen.com/soundtracks.html
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composition, the edits rarely, if at all, convey a passing of time within the narrative of the film
itself. As with Nightfall , the sense of time within Isolation is driven by sound.
Outside of the aforementioned specific examples, it is evident that any atemporal visual
media must outsource its sense of time to a supporting salient stimulus, as there is none for
the art object itself to offer. This supporting temporal contribution may come from a
superimposed temporality via sound, or from the human-time of the experiencer themselves.
Fine Art academic Elizabeth Buhe’s discussion of temporality in relation to ‘time sculpture’
provides a useful description of this mediation of temporalities between experiencer and
artwork:
“The artist intentionally mediates the construction of time and how the viewer will experience it. Waiting
for the work of art produces a temporal disturbance that takes us out of “human time” and puts us into the
“object’s time”...the beholder’s innate curiosity to understand the world prompts them to cede the agency of
human time, to stay and reconcile the unknown durations of both the work and of their stay in front of it.” 42
‘Time sculpture’ can be directly substituted by ‘sound accompanying atemporal visual media’
in this instance. As discussed previously, temporality is superimposed via sound, as opposed
to a reliance on a sense of time inherent within the visual media itself. A drawback with
Buhe’s argument is her inference of active participation in temporal exchange. Considering
that emotion, environment, and physicality are all major figures in the variability of one’s sense
of time, it is implausible to infer a cognizance in the experiencer with regards to a sense of 43
time. Outside of a literal counting of temporal subdivisions — a musician playing to a
metronome, for example — it is extremely uncommon to consider subjective temporal
experience concurrent to actual objective temporal experience. Buhe additionally posits a
heightened perceptual engagement which comes as a result of ‘temporal uncertainty’ 44
(anticipation), and importantly, a curiosity which follows. This sense of intrigue is defined more
specifically in the studies of psychology of expectation; the ‘imagination response’, which
42 Elizabeth Buhe, “Waiting for Art: The Experience of Real Time in Sculpture”, Contemporaneity, 1, 2011, 118, doi: 10.5195/contemp.2011.20 43 Claudia Hammond, Time Warped: Unlocking The Mysteries of Time Perception (Toronto, House of Anansi Press Inc.: 2012): 5 44 Ibid.
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makes outcomes emotionally and psychophysiologically palpable by manifesting the feeling
of them in the mind’s eye. This kind of anticipatory projection is a key marker of the ability of 45
sound to create fluidity within temporal perception.
2.3.1 VIDEO GAMES AND TEMPORAL FLUIDITY
In the prior section I described how sound can afford alternate temporalities to those which
are portrayed onscreen. Though regardless of where it is deployed (cinema, arts, etc), this
affording of alternate temporality is still in accordance with the primary role of sound in any
audiovisual context: to convey a sense of meaning. In instances where disjuncts in visual
narrative may detract from a coherent sense of meaning, sound can use its own metadiegetic
effect to smooth perceived ruptures, and create a fluid sense of time within a work.
Video games provide an interesting intermediary between the experience of moving image
and atemporal visual media with regards to the experience of time. In particular, sound acts
as a temporal/narrative stabiliser in instances of frequent restarting of narrative progression
due to death and respawn. ‘Death’ in this context refers to a failure to meet a stipulation to
progress the narrative of the game; this may be a literal death of a player-controlled
character, or perhaps a wrong answer or time-limit in a puzzle game. ‘Respawn’ refers to a
reinstancing of time at the closest narrative marker or chapter prior to death ingame. Sound
designer and composer Martin Stig Andersen discusses the role of sound in the
death-respawn problem at length in his presentation at the 2016 Game Developers
Conference. In particular, he posits sound as the key actuator in maintaining a temporal 46
stability across a video game where the death/respawn problem is active. This is achieved
through soundtrack as metadiegesis. An example of this can be found in the score and sound
design created by Andersen for the video game Inside. Both games follow a protagonist 47
who has a high potential of regularly dying as the player progresses through the narrative; as
45 Huron, Sweet Anticipation , 8 46 Presentation at GDC 2016 by Martin Stig Andersen. “A Game That Listens - The Audio of INSIDE” (video), 2016, accessed 2018-03-05, https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1023731/A-Game-That-Listens-The 47 Inside , Arnt Jensen (Director), Martin Stig Andersen (Composer, Audio director, Sound designer), Søs Gunver Ryberg (Sound designer) (Playdead: Playdead, 505 Games, 2016), video game
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is the case in many games, death is often an inevitable result of problem solving. Frequent
death-respawn therefore results in stumbling transitions and disruptive cuts to the sense of
place formed through audiovision. To fix the problem;originally identified by Andersen in the
development of Playdead’s preceding game Limbo; sound was separated from the loading 48
and unloading of memory by the game engine, and was thus able to maintain its temporality
as a constant. Thus, as the player hears the atmospheric hybrid score/sound design of the
respective environment their character is in, the sound continues fluidly through any deaths
and following respawns, retaining a constant presence of the environment. By so doing, this
provides a placial foundation upon which any secondary audiovisual elements can then
operate freely. Andersen’s practice itself has evolved from sonic arts installations, and as
such he relates the temporal fluidity inherent within video games to the experience of sound in
gallery and site-specific situations; instances in which “everything happens in the present.” 49
This temporal dimensionality defines my own compositional methodology with regards to the
sound works created for the practical component of this research. This will be further
explored in chapter four.
2.4 SUMMARY
In this chapter I outlined cinematic principles of immersion, and discussed in what way they
may be transposed into an atemporal visual media context. I examined the division between
onscreen and offscreen sound, and in so doing posited that an expansion away from screenic
terminology required the establishment of new spatial concepts: expanded perceptual space
and abstracted perceptual space. I then discussed temporality in relation to both moving
image media and atemporal visual media. I consequently identified that sound acts as the
primary conduit for temporality when situated with atemporal visual media. I finally discussed
video games as an example of a moving image media wherein the role of sound in relation to
temporal fluidity parallels that within installation-based sonic arts practices.
48 Limbo , Arnt Jensen (Director), Martin Stig Andersen (Composer), (Playdead: Playdead, Microsoft Game Studios, 2010), video game 49 Interview with Martin Stig Andersen. “DEATH IN DESIGN: Martin Stig Andersen” (video), 2017-05-01, accessed 2018-03-05, https://vimeo.com/215488901
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Chapter 3:
Sound as Virtual Place
3.1 OVERVIEW
Sound as virtual place is centered around the concept of abstracted perceptual space; as
defined in Chapter 2, this refers to a non-screenic extrapolation of unlocalised offscreen
sound. In a cinematic context, the realm of the unlocalised offscreen is dictated almost
entirely by sound. This is a space is not limited only to expressions of placiality, as
extra-temporal narrative information is an equal potential via the conduit of the soundtrack. As
discussed in more detail in the previous chapter, the inherent temporal nature of sound has
equal capacity to support the visual temporal narrative as it does to undermine or abstract it.
In the context of atemporal visual media, sound becomes the primary temporal conduit, and
thus the salient stimulus in the resulting audiovisual experience. The focus of this chapter,
therefore, is the potential for sound to act independently of an accompanying visual medium.
As sound moves off and away from the prescribed borders of screen based visual media, it
begins to traverse a space largely defined by its undefinability. This ambiguous, intermediary
spatio-temporal dimension is often categorised as liminal, though due to a history of broad
application and lack of precise definition, this research would be no clearer with than 50
without its categorization. Greater clarity lies within the concept of sound as virtual place, yet
this too requires further clarification. My use of the word ‘virtual’ in this instance (and
hereafter) refers simply to what is so in essence but not in form; antonymic to concrete. This 51
definition is required as ‘virtual’, like ‘liminal’, has garnered a multiplicity of meaning
50 Dara Downey, Ian Kinane, and Elizabeth Parker, eds. Landscapes of Liminality: Between Space and Place (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), 3 51 Rob Shields, The Virtual (London: Routledge, 2003), 22
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throughout its use across different practices. For example, in the present technological age
‘virtual’ commonly describes something that is within a digital realm, and within previous
philosophical discussion one is met with a lack of authoritative definition overall. By 52
employing the concept of sound as virtual place, the mysterious, undefinable nature of
liminality can be avoided. This allows a more grounded position from which to investigate the
greater issues at hand: how is sound as virtual place defined, how is it generated, and what
does it do?
Furthermore, it is important to note the use of place instead of space in the new concept I
have proposed above. As outlined in Chapter 1, there is a clear distinction in meaning
between the two words, and this new concept provides a clear understanding of that. As will
be discussed in further detail hereafter, sound as virtual place is classified as placial due to its
reliance on perceptual interpretation; the very thing that drives a sense of place. It is not
‘sound as virtual space’, as this intermediary cognitive area is not acoustic, nor geometric, nor
physical.
The theoretical foundation for this chapter will revolve around the interfacing of four main
contributions: Salome Voegelin’s concept of perception as interpretation, the Japanese 53
spatio-temporal concept of Ma , mythical space, and anamnesis as defined by Augoyard et 54
al. 55
3.2 SPACE, PLACE, AND ENVIRONMENT
To achieve a complete understanding of sound as virtual space, the taxonomies of its
comprising elements must first be outlined. As identified in the first chapter, sound may exist
as either sound objects, or sonic effects. The bifurcation of space and place, however, is
more complicated.
52 Ibid., 26 53 Salomé Voegelin, Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art (New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010), 4 54 Tuan, Space and Place , 99 55 Augoyard et al, Sonic Experience , 21
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Anthropologist Setha Low identifies five separate conceptual relationships between the two
definitions: 56
1. Space and place are separate.
2. Space and place are separate, but overlap in an area defined as “translocal space”.
3. Place is a subset of space.
4. Space is a subset of place.
5. Space and place are coterminous.
This list represents the summary of Low’s comprehensive etymological examination of the
uses of space and place across a wide spectrum of practices - each entry is comprised of
commonalities across the broad and ongoing dialogue of what exactly constitutes space
and/or place. The examined fields are inclusive of philosophy, mathematics, social theory,
geography, architecture, archaeology, and environmental psychology. My research identifies
and employs the second of the five listed relationships as the basis for an understanding of
space and place. I separate space and place as follows: space is physical, structural,
geometrical, acoustic. This differs from place, which is defined by writer Lucy Lippard as both
a topographical lived intimacy, and an experience of land as derived by the senses. 57
The definitions of both Lippard and Low provide the fundamental understanding of space and
place as situated within this research. However, neither identifies a positing of ‘environment’
amongst the spatio-temporal continuum. Lippard’s use of land in the previous example
provides an effective parallel for how I define ‘environment’ amongst this research project.
Land reads as non-constructed, natural space, with a limit as to how far it stretches
geographically; when one speaks of land, they do not speak of the entirety of the global
natural landscape at once, rather specific terrain and geography. By extension, I argue
56 Low, Spatializing Culture , 12-13 57 Lucy Lippard, The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society (New York: The New Press, 1997), 33-34
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‘environment’ conveys a similar macro-categorizing of geography, with the additional
inclusion of constructed and urban spaces. When describing environments as relative to a
place, we are able to delimit spatio-perceptual surroundings by removing the infinite from the
equation.
The overlap between space and place supports a synthesis of new spatio-temporal
knowledge. ‘Translocal space’, as defined by Low, is understood within an inherently
anthropological framework, understandably. As such, Low’s examples focus on transnational
community, and feature humans as the main actuator in what drives translocality. In a context
free of socio-political residue, Low additionally posits translocality as “not simply moving
between places, but the superposition and linking of localities through space-time
compression.” This thinking is extended through Lippard’s own identification of a kind of 58
translocality, though not defined explicitly as such :
“Each time we enter a new place, we become one of the ingredients of an existing hybridity, which is
really what all ‘local places’ consist of. By entering that hybrid, we change it; and in each situation we may play a
different role.” 59
Both Low and Lippard situate personal experience at the center of a sense of place. These
explanations provide a means to comprehensively define the concept of sound as virtual
place, with particular emphasis on functional-site site responsivity inherent within the practical
component of this research. ‘Functional site’ in this instance refers to a term coined by James
Meyer: the term describes a site that may or may not incorporate a physical place, instead
operating as a process occurring between sites. Furthermore, as Low identifies, the 60
contrasting modalities and contradictions that characterize the varying dialogues of space
and place often lead to new approaches and theoretical imperatives. Low additionally notes 61
58 Low, Spatializing Culture , 174 59 Lippard, The Lure of the Local , 6 60 James Meyer, “The Functional Site” in Space, Site, Interventions, Situating Installation Art [Online], (University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 2000). http://www.scribd.com/doc/40458721/Meyer-James-The-Functional-Site [Accessed 2017-04-22], 24-25 61 Low, Spatializing Culture , 32
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that the translocal is a burgeoning area of investigation, and brings particular questioning to
where translocality exists: physical, virtual, or imaginary?
As such, the intermediary spatio-temporal nature of translocality is a clear point of departure
from which to further define the concept of sound as virtual place.
3.3 DEFINITION
Inasmuch as sound and vision have the potential to greatly support and enhance one another,
sound does not rely on visual media to communicate spatio-temporal concepts. Sound
communicates experiential context through representations and rearticulations of literal
physical space, as well as inferred emotional or psychological space. Direct representations
of physical environments within sound are used to establish consonant links between sound
and vision in fundamental forms. In a sonic arts context, this kind of example has strong links
to existing practices within acoustic ecology or soundscape studies, where sound is used to 62
truthfully represent the target of its capturing for critical listening. As we expand from direct
representation into more contemporary approaches to audiovisual experiences, sound plays a
more imaginative role than a literal one. With contemporary audiovisual aesthetics
exonerating sound from the duty of representation, implication of visual content has become
sound’s new cinematic grounding. 63
The cinematic origins of sound began in a monaural playback format. Though despite the
technically limited format’s spatial potential in concept, the advent of Dolby Stereo playback
systems’ extension of the physical soundfield outwards from the centre of the screen urged
sound designers and composers to explore the space outside of rectangular visual
delineation. This investigation of offscreen sound expanded the audience’s perception of
represented environments into what Chion describes as the superfield. As described in 64
Chapter 2, offscreen space can be employed fundamentally as to provide an extension of an
environment already established onscreen, yet can also abstract and manipulate spatial and
placial perception. There have been calls for a further specification of an ‘ultrafield’ by film
62 Kendall Wrightson, “An Introduction to Acoustic Ecology,” Journal of Electroacoustic Music , Volume 12 (1999): 13 63 Donnelly, Extending Film Aesthetics, 357 64 Chion, Audio-Vision , 155
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and media arts academic Mark Kerins - this refers to continuing expansions with surround 65
sound formats, post-Dolby Stereo. The expansions are considerable: in film, Dolby Atmos
offers the potential of up to 64 discrete speaker feeds, allowing for positioning of sound in a
more exaggerated vertical plane. Outside of the cinema, the audio-over-Ethernet platform
Dante matches this capability, with the added potential freedom of non-cinema speaker
orientations, such as in the Wonderland (2018) exhibition at Australian Centre for the Moving
Image, where 54 channels of discrete audio were used in total to spatialise the soundtrack. 66
Ultimately, these are technical expansions, and as such I argue Kerins’ push for the ‘ultrafield’
is redundant considering the term superfield wholly includes, but is not exclusive to a stereo
playback format as described in Chion’s originating use of the term. A proposition for an
ultrafield incorrectly prioritizes a correlation between directionality and the physical spatial
sonic environment. It assumes the experiencer is immersed in the sonic narrative by means of
literal mechanical playback. Although, the flaws inherent within a potential application of
Kerins’ argument within this research do highlight the important distinction between spatial
extension and perceptual extension.
The superfield relies on imagined virtual space to generate its fluid and morphable
representations of place. Considering this, I argue the main actuator of the superfield is
actually perceptual engagement by the experiencer themselves, as opposed to the format of
the playback system. Even Chion himself notes that conscious and active perception is only
one part of a wider perceptual field in operation. In the case of atemporal visual media, the 67
superfield’s reliance on imagination and creative perception is even greater. As outlined in the
previous chapter, the expanded context and metadiegesis of a work is delivered almost
exclusively by sound when sound is present. Regardless of how direct or abstract a
representation of place is within a work, I argue any approach employs the offscreen as the
spatial sonic field when accompanying atemporal visual media, and is therefore engaged
65 Mark Kerins, Beyond Dolby (Stereo) : Cinema in the Digital Sound Age . (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010): 301 66 Technical details ascertained in a direct message communication with the exhibition’s sound designer, Byron Scullin, on 2018-08-15 67 Chion, Audio-Vision , 33
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entirely within the superfield. As sound transcends spatial dimensionality, perception
becomes the centre of sound space, reflected in the experiencer. 68
This argument provides the foundation for an interfacing with sonic arts theorist Salomé
Voegelin’s concept of perception as interpretation:
“It is perception as interpretation that knows that to hear the work/the sound is to invent it in listening to
the sensory material rather than to recognize its contemporary and historical context. Such listening will produce
the artistic context of the work/the sound in its innovative perception rather than through the expectation of an a
priori reality.” 69
Perception as interpretation naturally leads to questions of the experiencer’s personal
influence within their engagement. As personal experience is a key variable in what defines a
sense of place, in essence perception as interpretation can be categorised as a form of
projection. As described by Ethnomusicologist Veit Erlmann, projection acts as a mechanism
for bridging the gap between idea and experience. Moreover, in the words of arts scholar 70
Okakura Kakuzo, “we see only our own image in the universe - our particular idiosyncrasies
dictate the mode of our perceptions.” As perception of place is the fundamental research 71
focus within this thesis, sound therefore provides the necessary vehicle for manipulation of
the idiosyncratic perceptual approach to what defines a sense of place. A primary arbitrator
for this manipulation is found within a consideration of anamnesis when developing the sonic
component of a work.
3.3.1 ANAMNESIS
Anamnesis originates in ancient Greek philosophy, defined within Plato’s Phaedo and Meno
texts. As such, the original definition of anamnesis is centered around the idea that humans 72
68 Georg Klein, “Site sounds - creating perception in sound art”. Lecture, LAK Sound Art Festival, Copenhagen, September, 2012, accessed 8th December, 2017, http://www.georgklein.de/publications/texts/creatingperception.pdf 69 Voegelin, Listening to noise and silence, 4 70 Veit Erlmann, Reason and Resonance: A History of Modern Aurality (New York, Zone Books: 2014): 210 71 Okakura Kakuzo, The Book of Tea. (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co, 1956): 83-84 72 R. E. Allen, "Anamnesis in Plato's "Meno and Phaedo". The Review of Metaphysics 13, no. 1 (1959): 165
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possess an innate knowledge, and that the process of learning consists of rediscovering that
innate knowledge within ourselves. Though as stated earlier in this chapter, I have specified 73
a particular reading of anamnesis as a key reference in this research. This is due to the
contemporary reading providing a basis for understanding anamnesis within the context of
the sonic experience.
Thus, as defined by sound researcher and sociologist Jean François Augoyard,
“The anamnesis effect merges sound, perception, and memory. It plays with time, reconnecting past
mental images to present consciousness, with no will other than the free activity of association.” 74
Anamnesis blurs subjective and archetypal dimensions in a sonic context through an
intentional withholding of contextual detail. This presents a great potential for manipulation,
considering that social, cultural, and environmental context are major contributors to
derivation of meaning within any sonic experience. For example, an industrial soundscape 75
with a strong anamnesis effect may include sounds of machinery, but will limit the signifiers
that render the sound objects specifically identifiable. As such, a listener can interpret the
presentation as an ‘industrial’ sonic environment, without having personal experience of the
sound objects comprising the sonic total. This absence of specific detail shapes a sonic
framework, which lived experience, in turn, colours in its own way. 76
Intentional limiting of detail can also be applied spectrally, as opposed to compositionally or
contextually. Where the aforementioned example describes a muddying of placial detail, a
limiting of materializing sonic indices reduces spectral distinction in an individual sound 77
object’s authenticity. Sound objects deprived of necessary referential spectral detail become
abstracted, and enigmatic in quality. This contributes to the generation of a virtual sense of
place through a prompting for input from the experiencer themselves. By extension, spectral
uncertainty and incompleteness in the listening experience results in what I posit as an
73 Ibid, 173 74 Augoyard et al, Sonic Experience , 21 75 Barrie Truax, Acoustic Communication . (Westport, Connecticut: Ablex Publishing, 2001): 12 76 Truax, Acoustic Communication , 22 77 Chion, Audio-vision , 114
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extrapolation of amodal/perceptual completion. The term originates from cognitive 78
psychology, and refers to the mechanism of completing occluded visual shapes. Also referred
to as the ‘closure mechanism’, experimental psychology and cognitive science researcher
Albert Bregman defines the process as a way of dealing with missing evidence; “but before
our perceptual systems are willing to employ it, they first have to be shown that some
evidence is missing.” Auditory occlusion — also referred to as ‘masking’ — is exemplified 79 80
in Bregman’s examples as interruption of a continuous melodic phrase by random bursts of
broadband noise. Whilst this is a somewhat imperfect example (due to its basis in
musicology) in the context of my research, I argue that limiting of spectral detail is another
form of auditory occlusion. In actuality of acoustics, limiting of spectral detail is a direct result
of physical occlusion of a sound source; one can simply cover their ears to experience the
results of this effect firsthand. Of course, artists are able to further shape and manipulate this
effect by means of equalization and filtering of a sound source before presentation. This is
certainly an area with a large potential for future research, as spectral auditory occlusion is
seemingly unexplored thus far in academic circles. Auditory occlusion and anamnesis are
both techniques that I have employed at multiple times in the practical component of this
research, and as such will be explored in further detail in the following chapter.
As established, the anamnesis effect is centered around what is known to the listener. It is a
‘known-unknown’ informing perceptual interpretation to follow. The mechanism inherent
within auditory occlusion similarly relies on the experiencer to fill-in-the-blanks perceptually.
This prompt to cognitively embellish and expand also exists outside of an arts context in the
form of ‘mythical space’. This concept is built upon a similar known-unknown experience
such as found within anamnesis. Yet where anamnesis calls upon an underdetermined
familiarity about things (sound objects) which inform spaces and places, mythical space
instead is more concerned with the fuzziness surrounding actual spatial perception.
78 “Shape Contour Perception”, Zililab (Perceptual Processing and Computational Lab - UCLA), accessed 2018-03-30, https://zililab.psych.ucla.edu/research/shape-contour-perception/ 79 Albert Bregman, Auditory Scene Analysis : The Perceptual Organization of Sound. 2nd MIT Press Paperback ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999), 27 80 Ibid., 27
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As geographer Yi-fu Tuan explains:
“The man’s world does not terminate at the walls of the study … of course the man does not attend to
these distant reference points, since he is playing with his dog; yet this large tacit knowledge is necessary to his
sense of being at home and oriented in the small arena of activity. When asked, he can envisage the broad field
beyond the range of perception; he can make explicit some parts of a large store of tacit knowledge...this
unperceived field is every man’s irreducible mythical space, the fuzzy ambience of the known which gives man
confidence in the known.” 81
Within mythical space, imagined space can stretch from embodying the local and the
personal, to the distant and far away. It is within this mythical space that sound as virtual
place operates, as it is a place which is reliant almost entirely on the imaginary. As with
anamnesis, mythical space relies on lived experience to inform the imagination of the
in-between. However, it is within the wilful ignorance of exclusion and contradiction where 82
mythical space is defined, and where sound as virtual place is consequently able to flourish.
The intentionally defective areas of knowledge surrounding the empirically known found 83
within anamnesis and mythical space are essential to establishing a functional superfield
within artworks responding to place. Within the context of rearticulation of place, the
aforementioned system can be employed for manipulation of local environment through an
imaginative layering of mythical space for metadiegetic effect.
3.4 MA
A bridge between the definition and generation of sound as virtual place lies within the
Japanese concept of Ma . This spatio-temporal concept shares similarity with the use of
81 Tuan, Space and Place, 86-87 82 Ibid., 99 83 Ibid., 86
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‘liminal’, considering its broad and changeable use. As researcher of Japanese art and
religion Richard B Pilgrim notes, the meaning of Ma ranges from something that is effectively
not discussable, to a bridge between traditional and contemporary art, art and religion, and
religion and culture. Yet it is the multiplicity of meaning, with particular reference to a fluid 84
spectrum of space and time, which makes Ma a unique conceptual and spatio-temporal term.
A common through line amongst the various uses of Ma is a sense of the intermediary and 85
the in-between. Subsequently, this is commonly coupled with a general emphasis on
contribution to spatio-temporal perception. In discussing space, silence, and emptiness
within a compositional sonic arts practice, Japanese sound artist Ryoko Akama writes that a
true understanding of Ma arises from its in-betweenness, or relativity perceived between
differing entities. For Akama, a performative sonic arts practice dictates these entities as 86
performative gestures, or sound objects. Within the context of my own arts practice, the
entities at play translate to sound and vision, as well as experiencer and artwork. This premise
is embodied within MA: Space/Time in the garden of Ryoan-ji (1989), a video work that
explores the relationship between Ma and the Ryoan-ji rock garden in northwest Kyoto,
Japan. Within the short film, a text work is featured amongst the combination of a near-silent
soundtrack punctuated by cavernous percussion, and the glacially slow tracking shots of the
garden. Despite its minimal execution, it provides a fundamental understanding of Ma in an
audiovisual context:
“Perceive not the objects
but the distance
between them
not the sounds
but the p a u s e s
they leave unfilled” 87
84 Richard B. Pilgrim, “Intervals (“Ma”) in Space and Time: Foundations for a Religio-Aesthetic Paradigm in Japan”, History of Religions, Vol. 25, No. 3 (1986): 257 85 Kunio Komparu, The Noh Theatre: Principles and Perspectives (Tokyo: Tanko New York, 1983), 70 86 Ryoko Akama, “Exploring Emptiness: An Investigation of MA and MU in My Sonic Composition Practice” (PhD thesis, University of Huddersfield, 2015), 17 87 Ma a Japanese concept: four films. DVD. Directed by Takahiko Iimura. New York, New York: Takahiko Iimura Media Arts Institute, 2005
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Sounds plays a key part in establishing abstracted perceptual space within this video work.
The reverb impulses triggered within the aforementioned cavernous percussion creates a
sudden and immediate secondary space as the reverb tails decay gradually to long moments
of silence. As the soundtrack is devoid of anything referential to that of the environment
onscreen, the transient percussive moments ring out into seeming acoustic void, emphasizing
this void space itself as an extension of visual narrative.
Ma is also extrapolated to infer imaginary space, embodied within the term ‘ yohaku ’. Artist
and academic Lee Ufan defines yohaku as the space of an event that is opened up through
an encounter between self and other. Ufan is a key voice in the dialogue of perceptual 88
engagement in art, having co-founded the Mono-ha school, a group of artists who focused on
the relationships of materials and perceptions rather than on expression or intervention. 89
Yohaku also importantly highlights the implicit nature of engagement with a work by an
experiencer. Ufan regards any participant engaging with an artwork as a point of contact
between external and internal realms:
“Infinity begins with the self, but is only manifested fully when connected with something beyond the
self. I do not want to fix or represent the self as self, but to recognize the existence of a place where such a
relationship exists.” 90
As an extension of this definition, then, artworks act as mediators between these two realms,
dramatizers of a state which is neither comparable nor antithetical. This has conceptual 91
tethers to an additional parallel identified by Akama, between the figure/ground relationship 92
88 Lee Ufan, The Art of Encounter, (London: Lisson Gallery, 2008), 10 89 “South Korean Artist Lee Ufan Masters The Art Of Encounter”, Y-jean Mun-Desalle, Forbes, published 2016-03-25, https://www.forbes.com/sites/yjeanmundelsalle/2016/03/25/south-korean-artist-lee-ufan-masters-the-art-of-encounter/#b10ff8d15a66 90 Ufan, Art of Encounter, 12-13 91 “An Ambiguous Medium: On Lee Ufan”, Barry Schwabsky, The Nation, published 2011-09-21, https://www.thenation.com/article/ambiguous-medium-lee-ufan/ 92 Daniel Schacter, Daniel Gilbert, Daniel Wegner, "Chapter 4: Sensation and Perception, Vision II: Recognizing What We Perceive." in Psychology, Second edition. (New York: Worth, 2011), 149-50
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in gestalt psychology and the Japanese perceptual structure of shin-gyō-sō. The notable 93
difference between the two concepts is the emphasis that shin-gyō-sō places on ‘ground’ as
a contrarily acting ‘figure’, with the acting ‘ground’ embodied within the perceptible field,
independent from figure. As Noh Theatre author Kunio Komparu identifies, the significant 94
part of perceptual engagement lies within this ground/perceptible field. Considering this, I 95
therefore argue that Ma acts as the cognitive omnipresent ground upon which sound as
virtual place is able to be constructed upon. Within the context of this research, it is the space
that exists between artwork and experiencer, from which a sense of place arises at the
subconscious behest of the experiencer’s abstracted perceptual extension.
3.5 GENERATION
We have now established a comprehensive definition of what comprises sound as virtual
place. This section will thus outline how the perceptual experience arises from its various
components identified heretofore. It focuses on active perceptual engagement,
self-dependent discovery, and mystery as the main actuators of its generation.
The main caveat of any ‘art experience’ is that one must be present to take part in said
experience. Given the usual activity of engagement with art, this provides a conundrum.
Consider the following: the more active the mechanics of immersion are in a film, the more
passively it may be received. The less active an installation/art experience, the more actively it
has to be decoded by the experiencer. Thus, the more complex, sophisticated, or ambiguous
a series of relationships across the senses are, the more space there is for subjective
variability. Within a linear narrative timeline such as within a cinema, subjective variability
threatens to destabilize the experience. Within film, clear communication of narrative is
paramount. Within a fine arts context, dialogue and discourse are instead common goals.
Generally speaking, the artist historically has been a maker of aesthetic objects; now instead
93 Akama, Exploring Emptiness, 60-61 94 Ibid, 60-61 95 Komparu, Noh Theatre , 72
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they are a facilitator, educator, coordinator, and bureaucrat. By creating a situation wherein 96
an experiencer must be active with their engagement with a work, a basis for self-dependent
discovery is created. This is a crucial element in the generation of sound as virtual place.
As outlined previously, mythical space, anamnesis, perception as interpretation, and Ma are
all reliant on subjectivity. In the context of comparative examples within cinematic and
installation-based and/or site-responsive sonic arts representations of audiovisual
experiences, the matter of how that subjectivity is engaged becomes the more pertinent issue
overall. The primary establishing argument in this instance is as follows: self-dependent
discovery is markedly more supported inside an installation-based arts context than in a
cinematic one, especially with sound as the primary salient stimulus. For example, within an
exclusively sonic context, temporality mandates the listener’s guidance through the sonic
narrative in a linear fashion. Regardless of context, content, or playback platform, the listener
is still subservient to the unfolding of temporality. Within an installation-based context, an
experiencer’s engagement with an artwork instead leads the interpretation of the piece. In
contrast to traditional audiovisual presentations, installation-based sonic arts offers a greater
sense of openness with regards to both time and space. As an analogy, where audience
members in a cinematic context are passengers on a ship, experiencers of sonic-arts
installations are instead visitors to a garden, free to wander and discover in self-directed
agency. This kind of self-dependent discovery is consequently framed by the depth of
perception in the participant, as well as the depth of discovery offered by the artist via the arts
experience. 97
This kind of engagement methodology has links with nudge theory and choice architecture, in
that an experiencer’s behaviour has the potential to be altered in a predictable way as a result
of decisions by the artist, without forbidding any options or changing incentives for the
experiencer. Although the roots of nudge theory lie in economics, what was originally 98
economic ‘options’ or ‘incentives’ may easily be substituted by methods of perceptual and
96 Miwon Kwon, One Place after Another : Site-specific Art and Locational Identity (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002), 103 97 Klein, Site Sounds 98 Richard Thaler, and Cass Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008): 6
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sensory engagement in audiovisual experience. For example, by providing an intentionally
incomplete spectral profile in Location Study No. 7 , the artwork nudges the participant to
engage further, without forbidding the option of not doing so. This was an intentional creative
choice by myself, actuated via a set of headphones resting on the lightbox as a prompt to
engage with the work on a deeper level. Importantly, this architecture of choice does not
dictate the headphones as the only way to engage, as concurrent monaural playback via
speaker remains regardless of headphone interaction, thus creating a passive sonic field
through which to experience the artwork.
Self-dependent discovery is driven by willing, and therefore active, perceptual engagement.
However, willing and active perceptual engagement denotes a preceding motive to shift from
passivity to activity. As Andrew Lawrence-King suggests in his research of hypnotic states in
theatre, active thinking can supply imaginative content that is missing from deliberately
meagre suggestions. This is due to the belief in the reality of a suggested experience not
being directly related to the completeness of perceptual or contextual detail. Within the 99
context of this research, I posit underdetermination and mystery as the key elements in
creating the aforementioned deliberately meagre suggestions which prompt for active
perceptual engagement, and in turn perceptual extension (extended or abstracted).
Underdetermination originates from scientific theory, and suggests that evidence available at
a given time may be insufficient to determine which beliefs should be held in response to it. 100
Within an arts context, underdetermination allows for a prompting for completion from the
experiencer. By intentionally rendering an artwork incomplete — by means of spectral or
contextual information — I argue the experiencer’s underdetermination triggers a
subconscious desire to complete the experience. As composer and audiokinesis researcher
Darrin Verhagen notes, perspectives that challenge our sense of reality can often be
subconsciously accounted for and assimilated without registration. This is due to our
programmed initiative as humans to take new information, and assemble it into a workable
frame, subconsciously accessing any schemas, or placing faith in any unknown internal logics
99 Andrew Lawrence-King, “The Theatre of Dreams”, Australian Drama Studies, 67 (2015): 56 100 “Underdetermination of Scientific Theory”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, substantive revision 2013-09-16, https://stanford.library.sydney.edu.au/archives/fall2013/entries/scientific-underdetermination/
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necessary for an immersive experience to effortlessly succeed. This highlights an important 101
distinction between active/reduced listening, and passive listening paired with active
interpretation. This research engages directly with the latter; passivisity is required to transmit
conduits of immersion to the participant, whilst activity is subsequently required to trigger the
generation of sound as virtual place. This state of perceptual engagement may also be
described as ‘inactive attention’. This methodology has strong links to Lawrence-King’s 102
allegory of hypnotism in cinematic performative works. He suggests that by listening
attentively, any experiencer consents and cooperates with the tenets of an artwork, and by so
doing hypnotises themselves into the necessary immersive experience. Lawrence-King also 103
identifies a parallel between the pairs of hypnotist and subject, and performer and audience.
This effectively renders the experiencer as an intermediary node between performer and 104
audience, wherein self-dependent discovery gives way to recursive self-performance.
3.5.1 MYSTERY
Deliberately meagre suggestions, withholding of detail, fudging of contextual reference; all of
these elements within architecture of perceptual engagement fall under the category of
mystery. Mystery provides an artist with the the ability to prompt for perceptual expansion,
something easy to consider given its semantic synonymity to uncertainty and the unknown. 105
Mystery in the sonic arts is readily accessible: the most common example is found within
sound objects that remain acousmatic, as this creates a mystery of the nature of its source. 106
Considering how often installation-based sonic arts are acousmatic in nature (given the sheer
convenience of speaker-based playback), this results in an overwhelming abundance of
potential mystery. Leaving aside the subjective debate as to the taxonomy of what can or
cannot be mysterious, the mechanism of curiosity that propels an understanding of mystery
presents a better opportunity for understanding mystery in an audiovisual context, albeit one
101 Darrin Verhagen, “Noise, Music and Perception: Towards a Functional Understanding of Noise Composition”, PhD thesis, RMIT University, 2011, 152 102 Erlmann, Reason and Resonance , 317 103 Lawrence-King, The Theatre of Dreams, 68 104 Ibid, 68 105 “Mystery”, Oxford University Press, accessed 2018-04-02, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/mystery 106 Chion, Audio vision , 72
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which is equally non-concrete. Behavioral decision researcher George Loewenstein defines 107
curiosity as a cognitive induced deprivation that arises from perception of a gap in knowledge
and understanding. Loewenstein posits that curiosity functions like other drive states, such 108
as hunger does for eating. In essence, this suggests that by muddying the clarity of
perceptual engagement, enough information is supplied to serve as a priming dose for a
greater investigative drive for more information to consume. In a sonic arts context, the 109
temporal and unfolding nature of sound pairs this curiosity drive state with what cognitive
scientist David Huron identifies as the ‘imagination response’. In this instance, curiosity 110
motivates the experiencer to seek more information, while imagination helps to navigate a
complex landscape of potential uncertainty. Sound amalgamates this into a unified
experience, as the act of listening itself is a way for one to consider that things could be other
than what we had assumed them to be. As Paul Carter states in his investigation of 111
ambiguity and incompleteness in listening experiences:
“Listening, unlike hearing, values ambiguity, recognizing it as a communicational mechanism for creating
new symbols and word senses that might eventually become widely adopted.” 112
Professor of environment and philosophy Emily Brady also investigates mystery, within the
context of the sublime and experience of natural landscape. The term ‘sublime’ is one with a
history of theoretical and terminological complications, additionally a term with with fluid 113
movement across generic boundaries. For the purpose of clarity, Brady’s ‘environmental 114
sublime’ speaks to experiences of greatness beyond all possible understanding, calculation,
107 Celeste Kidd, Benjamin Hayden, “The Psychology and Neuroscience of Curiosity”, Neuron 88, 3 (2015): 449, 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.09.010 108 George Loewenstein, “The Psychology of Curiosity: A Review and Reinterpretation”, Psychological Bulletin, 116, 1 (1994): 75 109 Kidd, The Psychology and Neuroscience of Curiosity, 450 110 Huron, Sweet Anticipation , 8-9 111 Graham Brodie, Nathan Crick, “Listening, Hearing, Sensing: Three Modes of Being and the Phenomenology of Charles Sanders Peirce”, Communication Theory, 24, 2 (2014): 105, https://doi.org/10.1111/comt.12032 112 Paul Carter, “Ambiguous Traces, Mishearing, and Auditory Space.” in Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening and Modernity, edited by Veit Erlmann (New York: Berg, 2004): 44 113 Kenneth Holmqvist, Jaroslaw Pluciennik, "A Short Guide to the Theory of the Sublime." Style 36, no. 4 (Winter, 2002), https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/docview/231167556?accountid=13552 , 720 114 Jahan Ramazani. “Yeats: Tragic Joy and the Sublime.” MLA 104.2 (1989): 163-177, 175
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or imitation, within the context of the natural environment. Without needing to further unpack
the function of ‘the sublime’ in this instance, Brady’s specific observation provides a useful
parallel to an understanding of mystery within an audiovisual context; in her observations, an
adoption of mystery is key to an understanding of the puzzling nature of the sublime
experience. Suggesting that certain natural phenomena are simply not within our grasp of
understanding, an appreciation of mystery as having a quality which cannot be fully known or
appropriated therefore supports an attitude of humility. Although it is not comparable to an 115
instance of complete dissociation, Brady’s arguments have links to Holland’s principles of
suspension of disbelief, and as such is a useful parallel for immersion in audiovisual
experience. As an extension to this observation, philosophy researcher Jonathan Scott Miller
identifies that the part of the brain responsible for generating the usual sense of separation
between self and other works differently based on whether or not objects in the environment
are perceived to be within grasping distance. As dissociation can be experienced as a 116
disconnect between real-world sensory information and hallucinated phenomena prompted
by suggestions, this provides an example of how an accepted unknown can have a 117
dissociative effect, in turn contributing to perceptual immersion.
3.6 SUMMARY
In this chapter, I have identified the distinctions between space, place, and environment, and
discussed the nuanced significance of place in the context of this research. The notion of the
superfield has been explored with particular reference to perception as the centre of sonic
spatiality. I have then discussed how personal context and imagination is a major influence on
resulting perceptual spaces, and showed how intentional limiting of detail can prompt for
deeper engagement with an experiencer. Subsequently, I have examined Ma in relation to the
concept of sound as virtual place, and highlighted parallels between them. I finally have
identified self-dependent discovery as a major actuator in perceptual engagement, and by
115 Emily Brady, “The Environmental Sublime” in The Sublime: From Antiquity to the Present, edited by Timothy Costelloe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012): 179-180 116 Jonathan Scott Miller, “Are Mystical Experiences Evidence for the Existence of a Transcendent Reality? Evaluating Eugene d’Aquili and Andrew Newberg’s Argument for Absolute Unitary Being”, Florida Philosophical Review Volume IX, Issue 1 (2009): 41 117 Lawrence King, The Theatre of Dreams, 55
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extension discussed mystery and curiosity as mechanisms which prompt for perceptual
expansion, as well as the function that dissociation plays in perceptual engagement.
Chapter 4:
Creative Practice Reflection
4.1 OVERVIEW
This chapter provides a detailed examination of each of the four major works completed for
this research project, as well as supplemental studio experiments and documentative
processes. Using the theoretical frameworks established in Chapters 2 and 3, the following
discourse examines my thinking during the developmental process, as well as in reflection on
completed works. This examination is completed with particular reference to the exploration
of expanded perceptual space, abstracted perceptual space, and sound as virtual place,
embodied within the practical development of this research project.
Whilst this chapter primarily explores the technical and theoretical transference from
conceptual to practical, it also provides an important platform from which to investigate the
motive and reasoning behind each work and their respective developmental trajectories. This
questioning is equally informed by artistic, intuitive, emotional, and political reasoning, as it is
by tracing a conceptual evolution through the works. Over-explanation of artistic motive can
become problematic within a highly specialised research project such as this, and yet total
ignorance of artistic motive within the overview of each work would fail to provide a truly
comprehensive understanding of its developmental process. To rectify this issue, I have
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provided a summarised explanation as to the non-theoretical reasoning behind the
development of each work, be it emotional, political, intuitive, or otherwise.
As the dialogue of sound and site/space/place/environment forms the throughline of this
research project, the eventual place of exhibition/presentation for an artwork forms a key
point of discussion. As such, the following investigation is divided into two main focal points:
gallery-based, and site-specific. Consequently, the first two of the four works completed as
part of this research project, Location Study No. 7 and Hewn, represent a gallery-based
approach to exhibition methodology. Furthermore, the latter two works, Wardens and Envoys, represent a site-specific/responsive approach. The respective investigation of each work is
also presented in chronological order, so as to accurately represent the trajectory of
conceptual development across the entirety of the research project.
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4.2 Location Study No. 7
Fig. 1 - The gallery-exhibited version of Location Studies 1 - 5 included GPS coordinates for each of the five
sites as well as download codes for the sound works
The first work completed for the research project exists also as the seventh iteration in a
site-responsive series which began in 2013. The series itself focuses on ideas of placial
layering, with sound as the key mechanism affording the layering in each iteration. Each of the
first five works required the participant to undertake an expedition to a marked place in
remote landscape, wherein they would listen to one of five respective sound works composed
specifically for each site. Each of the five sites was then documented through text, GPS
coordinates, and sampled natural materials (see Fig. 1). The first presented compendium of
the works, Location Studies 1 - 5 (2013) thus provided a collated gallery experience of the five
works, akin to the kinds of visual representations walking artist Hamish Fulton would create to
‘exhibit’ his expeditions after the fact. For each of the first five Location Studies works, the
place of exhibition was brought outward into the landscape, accompanied by inner urban
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‘sound states’. The term ‘sound states’ differs from soundscape, in that a sound state is
intentionally unchanging in its sonic narrative. In the case of Location Studies 1 - 5 , the sound
states drew exclusively on the acoustic ecology of the inner urban environment, with a
resulting soundtrack close to synthesized broadband noise. Each of the five paired sound 118
works were also created with a focus on embodiment of stasis in the listening experience. To
achieve this, a mixture of recordings of exhaust ports, ventilation systems, and other inner
urban sources of broadband noise comprised the sonic makeup of the works. These
unchanging industrial sound states served the work as dissections of inner urban placiality,
and as a way to denote a sonic character of the constructed environment, devoid of reference
to present human activity. The sound states created for this series of works were effectively
my first foray into the concept of sound as virtual place, albeit unwittingly at the time. The
following two works in the series, Location Study No. 6 (2015), and eventually Location Study
No. 7 (2017), returned the place of exhibition from active visual environments in situ, to settle
within the White Cube. With this decision, the sense of stasis within the work swapped from
existing within the soundscape back to within the visual media. With the visual field now
atemporal and unchanging, sound was brought to the forefront as primary communicator of
placial narrative.
The soundtrack within Location Study No. 7 continues the approach to soundtrack
composition developed over the Location Studies series. The methodology is as follows:
sound acts as the platform upon which to score imagined placial context of accompanying
visual media within an installation. This methodology was first established a number of years
ago in a solo exhibition of mine, entitled Shift (2014). The three works in Shift each featured
artefacts of stone collected from the natural landscape, presented in conjunction with the
aforementioned inner-urban industrial sound states. The recordings comprising the sound
states were inclusive of sound objects such as air conditioners, ventilation shafts, and
exhaust fans, for example.
118 Such as white noise, which is arguably the most commonly understood of the various colours of noise (referring to different power spectrums of noise signals, also described as timbre or tone).
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Fig. 2 - Participants at the Shift exhibition
The works in Shift intended to present an overlay of two sites, one representing a natural
environment, and the other a constructed environment. The key detail for each of the works
was the delivery of sound and vision, through headphones and via magnifying glass
respectively. I discovered interesting points of interrogation within the audiovisual experience
of directing one’s visual field through the magnifying glass concurrent to the binaural
soundfield of the over-ear headphones. Within the experience of the work, the magnifying
glass effectively became a camera lens (see Fig. 2). The effect was twofold, creating a tight
visual focus and frame, whilst misdirecting peripheral perception of the attendant gallery
space through the use of over ear headphones. By so doing, the participant was able to glide
and shift their visual frame across the pieces of stone, augmenting their perception of the
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undulating, jagged topography implicit within the material qualities of the stone.
The three respective sound states in Shift actively worked against the limitations of
time-limited, gestural sound works; there was an inference at hand speaking to the
incessancy of the sound of these machines which I had sampled. More prominently, the
atemporal, unchanging sound-state, muted and muffled in its presentation, instead acted as a
constant underscore to the imagined space outside the physical components. The sound of
the air conditioners and ventilation shafts shed their own contextual information in favour of
supporting and enveloping the abstracted environmental context of the sculptural elements.
Conceptually and developmentally, Shift directly informed the compositional process for
Location Study No. 7 . Specifically, it provided the base understanding of a sense of the
cinematic experience within an elemental gallery recreation. As such, Shift instigated an
exploration of how cinematic principles of immersion may inform perceptual engagement with
an artwork, an inquiry which Location Study No. 7 continued in its development.
4.2.1 MOTIVE
The Location Studies series is evidently a site-responsive project. As such, the creative
inception for Location Study No. 7 begins with personal investigation and exploration of site;
natural (non-constructed) landscape, specifically Pretty Valley in the Alpine Shire, Victoria.
After site investigation, sampling, and documentation through text, sound embodies
constructed environment, located within recordings of large-format diesel generators. The
machines were located at Royal Melbourne Hospital within a labyrinthine construction of
tunnels and restricted rooms underneath the hospital itself. The recordings were made during
a ‘black start’ test, wherein a simulated total power failure triggers the generators into their
programmed backup procedure. This system provides total operating power in an
emergency. Within the work, a narrative of transference of energy is traced between the two
sites, bookended by artistic intervention. Amongst the Kiewa Valley hydroelectric scheme,
Pretty Valley eventually failed as a planned site for hydroelectric production. The remnants of
the initial efforts remain scattered and hidden in the area, leaving the valley itself to exist as a
marker to a non-constructed landscape free of figures and regular human intervention. The
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present infrastructure now makes use of melting snow in the area to contribute significantly to
the various tributaries, of which a number of succeeding dams and hydroelectric stations
exploit for their established processes of energy harvesting. The generators underneath the
hospital exist as inherent markers of the constructed environment and the non-organic. Their
place in this narrative of transference of energy between two disparate places is an interesting
one, the machines themselves existing as a contingency to the failure of energy resource
management and procuration. In responding to this dialogue between contrasting sites and
respective environments, I intended to create a work which offered its own multimodality of
place within a singular spatial experience. In this regard, the work operates as a process,
occurring as intermediary between the multiple suggested sites (inclusive of the origin of the
natural artefacts, and the idealistic industrial landscape). The ‘functionality’ of the work thus 119
resides in the sense of virtual place afforded by sound, generated by the experiencer through
perceptual extension and abstraction.
4.2.2 PROCESS
The composition of Location Study No. 7 is as follows: seven vials of natural materials
(various plant matter, and one vial of fresh water, collected from remote natural landscape)
are exhibited atop a light box, whilst two sound works run concurrently (presented via
monaural speaker playback, and headphones). The light is unchanging, and the visual media
are unmoving. The two concurrent sound works present a fabricated atmosphere of
aggressive, broadband industrial noise. ‘Fabricated’ in this instance refers to the soundscape
not being a wholly direct representation of an original recording, as it is instead comprised of
a number of different sources. Both the sounds works feature the same source material, but
are sonically distinct due to stark differences in equalization, filtering, and reverb processing.
Informed directly from the presentation methodology of previous works in the Location
Studies series, the visual aesthetic of the work was constructed to encourage
single-participant engagement. Exhibited in a darkened space, dim, cold colour choices for
the supporting structures, and the backlit presentation space for the vials were employed in
combination to draw participants in. Furthermore, the speaker-delivered sound work was
119 As a ‘functional site’, as discussed in Chapter 3.
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presented with heavy filtering, drawing on the attractive power inherent within ‘deliberately
meagre suggestions’, as discussed within Chapter 3. This engineered magnetism towards the
participant is directed entirely towards entrance into the headphone soundfield, and in turn
the abstracted perceptual space of the artwork. Here, the speaker is a sonic beacon,
beckoning the participant to discover an additional perspective within the artwork itself, via
the headphones.
Fig. 3 - Location Study No. 7 in its final state, exhibited as part of Phantasmagoria (2017) at the Bogong Centre
for Sound Culture
The choice architecture inherent within Location Study No. 7 avoids the attitude of strict
single-participant engagement inherent within previous works in the series. This affords a
valid baseline experience in an instance where speaker-only is the only engagement had with
the work. The dual playback methodology is thus intended to provide a discoverable
alternative sonic perspective to the work. With the speaker playback providing the
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aforementioned baseline experience, the headphone playback subsequently augments the
artwork’s extended perceptual space. The use of headphones here is the major actuator in
creating a sense of sound as virtual place within the work. The affective power inherent within
their use is a direct result of a phenomenon referred to as ‘in-head localization’. As described
by Barry Blesser:
“Headphones create a spatial experience for a single individual. But for all their simplicity, when you
listen to a stereophonic recording intended for loudspeakers, headphones destroy your perception of external
space and location. The source location and spatial acoustics exist entirely inside your head, between your ears,
not outside in the world.” 120
This destruction of perception of external space and location is completely intentional within
Location Study No. 7 . In order to create a salient, alternative sense of place, the existing
placial residue must have the potential to be completely erased when presented with the
alternate. As the White Cube answers the desire for clean and uninterrupted line of sight
within the contemporary gallery space, so too does the ultimate isolating sonic effect of 121
headphones provide unquestionable distinction between exhibition space, and extended
perceptual space.
The starkness and desaturation of the visual aesthetic was matched with a similar approach
in the audio playback. To achieve this, little to no manipulation via effects or equalization are
deployed within the headphone playback, in contrast to overt manipulation in the speaker
playback. The latter of the two sonic perspectives includes heavy filtering and reduction of
materializing high-frequencies, as well as addition of reverb to suggest an increase in size
within the extended perceptual space of the work. A prototype version of the work was
test-exhibited as part of an informal practice reflection symposium (see Fig. 4) - this
prototype presented an opposite preferencing of processed vs unprocessed sound, with the
speaker playback remaining unprocessed in this instance. Upon presentation of the work,
participants often crouched down after entering the headphone soundfield. In discussion with
participants thereafter, many observed the muted frequency profile within the headphone
120 Barry Blesser, Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?: Experiencing Aural Architecture (London: MIT, 2007), 187 121 Kelly, Gallery Sound, 4
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playback as a prompt for a more intimate engagement with the work. In contrast, none of the
participants crouched when engaging with speaker-only playback. This withholding of
information provides an ability to arbitrate certain sonic signals to peak the imagination of the
listener. By choosing to obscure or filter out higher frequencies from the resulting sound work,
a sense of curiosity is piqued, and in turn the experiencer is prompted to fill in the blanks with
their perceptive interpretation.
Fig. 4 - An early studio prototype of Location Study No. 7 , before colour changes and switching to monaural
speaker playback
As stated earlier, the sound objects comprising the fabricated industrial sonic environment
within Location Study No. 7 were chosen to represent an archetypal industrial sonic
environment, without specific reference to a placial context. This is a competent example of
the sonic effect of anamnesis, as discussed in Chapter 2. By choosing to present a collaged
and multifaceted sonic environment, no concrete reference point is provided for the listener to
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ascertain the specific, originating source of the sound objects or sonic environments. A 122
hybridised methodology was thus used in order to properly execute such a compositional
decision. This was comprised of an acoustic ecological field recording practice, in
conjunction with a sound design practice. With this process, the blueprint for an idealistic
cognitive environment is grounded firmly in reality via the use of recordings of existing places
and objects. This is then augmented with the use of gestural application of sonic caricature or
supernormal stimuli within the sound design process. 123
As psychologist Deidre Barrett identifies, the essence of the supernormal stimulus is that
exaggerated imitation can exert a greater impact than the original thing it is exaggerating. In
the case of Location Study No. 7 , the augmentation exists in the form of added impact to the
onset of a sound object (the startup sequence for the generators), as well as added sonic
pretext to crescendo into eventual gestures. To use the terminology of neuropsychologist V.S.
Ramachandran, the resulting piece is a “peak-shifted” version of the original recordings. In 124
this manner, the essence of the environment has been captured, and in turn amplified, in
order to more powerfully activate the same neural mechanisms that would be activated by the
original recordings. With reference to the anamnesis effect, this amplification heightens the
feeling of the known-unknown in the experiencer. By so doing, the sense of industrial
placiality suggested within the soundtrack is expanded by the listener’s own experiential
colouring, and in turn abstracts the placial perception of the visual stimuli.
Given the iterative nature of the Location Studies series, Location Study No. 7 is a natural,
albeit somewhat predictable, evolution of the preceding works. As such, what I considered its
successes were in part marred by the potentially restrictive nature of iterative evolution. To
expand and develop in a manner so as to comprehensively represent the ongoing evolution in
the theoretical research, I resolved to abandon the pursuit of further iterations in the Location
Study series moving forward. Such a decision would allow for a freer exploration of
122 The rare caveat in this instance is the unlikely case of an extremely intimate lived experience with specific sound objects or places. 123 Deirdre Barrett, Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose (New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2010), 3 124 V.S. Ramachandran, William Hirstein, “The Science of Art: A Neurological Theory of Aesthetic Experience” in Journal of Consciousness Studies 6 (1999): 15–51.
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perceptual expansion and abstraction given the relative clean slate afforded thereafter.
4.3 Hewn
With all previous iterations of the Location Studies series, a strong sense of immersion relied
on intimacy and enclosed aesthetic visual and sonic fields. Moving forward, I wanted to
expand the experience of the artwork outward into the gallery space, so as to test the
attendant gallery space itself as a considered mechanism of engagement. To counter the
reliance on intimate and near-field engagement, the focus was shifted to speaker-only 125
playback. This allowed a comprehensive investigation of immersive soundfields outside of
headphone playback. This marked an important opportunity for further clarity in the research,
as the sonic experience of all seven iterations had relied near-exclusively on the absolute
power of headphones to sonically recontextualise. Hewn thus forms the second artwork
completed as part of the research project, and consequently stands as the second of the two
gallery-based installations.
4.3.1 MOTIVE
“Hewn is a sound installation tracing the narrative of resource transfer from unearthing of raw materials,
through to their eventual manufactured ends. The sonic and sculptural components of the work comprise a
documentational response to three separate instances of industrialised landscape; a vehicle manufacturing
plant, a defunct quarry, and an oil refinery.” 126
With Hewn, I wanted to draw a fluid and evocative line between two rearticulations of place,
with a heavier emphasis on the constructed environment and its accessory to land use and
resource procuration. The text within the work represents initial investigation of place, with
the primary placial subject in this instance the Mobil Oil refinery in Altona. This is visually
accompanied by a large mass of stone collected from a quarry in the western volcanic plains
125 As used in discussion of electromagnetic fields to discuss near and far radii of emitting waves; this provided a useful corollary for delineating the fields of experience within artworks. 126 From the exhibition promotional material, provided by the artist
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of Victoria. Text, and to a lesser degree scent, were employed as additional compositional
actuators in the work to further afford abstracted perceptual space. The use of scent within
the work arose simply from using stone with a lot of fresh residual organic matter from the
quarry it was removed from.
This kind of incidental and incremental contribution to expanded perceptual space was first
developed within Industrial Drones and Moss: Study No.1 (2013). The installation saw display
of large amounts of freshly harvested moss and soil from the Dandenong ranges, the organic
matter emitting a strong olfactory resonance of place each time it was tended to during daily
setup in the gallery. The use of raw stone in Hewn was also intended to suggest a dialogue of
time between the natural materials and the evocations of the Mobil refinery. As the refinery
itself was visually evident with decay and rusted patina, I felt it evoked a parallel sentiment to
that of sculptor and land artist Andy Goldsworthy’s consideration of stones: deeply ingrained
witnesses to time, and a focus of energy for their surroundings. Both the refinery and the 127
stones had their own history of place encoded into their physicality. I also wanted to use the
soundtrack to illustrate a dialogue of mass and power between the two sites of investigation,
largely inspired by the monolithic nature of the various towers at the refinery, in contrast to
the residue of large-scale land use. While visiting various quarries in development for Hewn, I was struck by the scale and severity of impact on the natural contours of the landscape; as
Lucy Lippard elegantly summarises, “gravel pits offer a casual archaeology of the meeting
places of nature and culture, past and present, construction and destruction.” 128
127 Jeffrey Kastner, ed., Brian Wallis, Land and Environmental Art (London: Phaidon Press, 1998), 6 128 Lucy Lippard, Undermining (New York: The New Press, 2015), 31
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Fig. 5 - Recording the large format die press machines at the Toyota manufacturing plant in Altona
In order to communicate a sense of this severity, I resolved that the source material for the
sonic component of the work needed to evoke a tangible sense of power and mass,
potentially even danger. As a result, recordings of large die press machines formed the
breadth of the soundtrack, captured at the Toyota manufacturing plant in Altona. This was
supplemented by additional performative recordings of metal and rock textures. I had long
held a fascination with industrial-scale power hammers and large format die presses, and the
first experience of the machines in person was nothing short of extraordinary. The hammers
and presses were inherently massive, yet perceptively wielded the sonic impact of even
greater mass and force. Near or far field, the listening experience of these machines demands
bodily sonic engagement; one is forced to ‘hear’ via the torso and legs as much as the ears.
As such, the playback system for Hewn was designed specifically to represent this bodily
sonic engagement as authentically as possible.
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Fig. 6 - Hewn installed at Testing Grounds
The final component and visual centrepoint of Hewn is a suspended Acacia bush, dry and
bare of life across its densely clustered anastomoses. Collected from one of the quarries
visited during development, I had initially included it in the visual arrangement as a fragile
counterpart to the rigid geometry and stern materiality which surrounded it. Subsequently, its
strong spatial magnetism created an opportunity to further explore the kinds of choice
architecture investigated in Location Study No. 7 ; using the bush to draw participants into the
‘sweet spot’ of the soundfield.
4.3.2 PROCESS
The sound technical setup for Hewn is as follows: two active PA speakers are positioned at
the edges of the space to create a wide stereo field, encompassing as much of the visual
space as possible. Two acrylic panels with text are each adorned by a single
transducer/contact speaker - this playback methodology turns surfaces and objects into
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sounding bodies through vibration, thus the acrylic panels themselves become speakers. A
single powered subwoofer is situated behind the designated viewing area (a small bench in
the rear-centre of the space) behind a section of black drape, so that it is out of sight. At the
climax of each cycle of the sound work, the sub provides a powerful burst of low frequency,
arriving from the rear of the room. The PA speakers provide high amplitude playback, thus
creating a wider possible dynamic range within the soundtrack, compared to limited playback
systems used previously such as nearfield monitors and headphones.
Fig. 7 - Detail of one of the contact speakers mounted on the leftmost acrylic panel for Hewn
The available dynamic range of the soundtrack is split across two playback systems, with the
transducer-activated panels activating primarily during quiet sections. This is due to the
contact speakers themselves being sufficiently less powerful than their active PA
counterparts, thus they are best heard at close proximity. At a distance, their presence adds
sonic texture, but not extra spatiality. Moreover, the stereo field they contribute independent
of the PA speakers aligns with that of the PA speakers when seated. Alternatively, a distinct
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gestural stereo listening experience is afforded when a participant is positioned in the ‘sweet
spot’, directly amidst the respective soundfield of the panels themselves. As the panels 129
activate during the softer middle section (featuring high frequency textural sounds), they
combine with the visual magnetism of the acacia bush in order to immerse participants further
into the experience of the artwork itself. This is a direct progression from the ‘discoverable
perspectives’ outlined in Location Study No. 7 . Whilst the designated seating provides a
completely valid experience of the work, the bush, panels, and a small channel in the stone
carpet, all combine to offer passage into a secondary perceptual engagement.
In order to suggest an alternative space the same size or greater through sound, the extended
perceptual space of Hewn relies on the power inherent in the playback system. The use of the
subwoofer in general plays a natural role in supporting the PA playback, with the inherent
added weight and impact of the sub-bass frequencies. It is these attributes that allow the
soundtrack to effectively communicate the desired mass and size of the extended perceptual
space in the work - in this case: giant, cavernous, and reflective of the actual space where the
large format die press machines were recorded. The anchoring of the extended perceptual
space on the sheer power of the playback responds to theory that pitch relates to object size.
Simply, things of great size and mass generally have a lower basic frequency than small
things. As noted earlier, Location Study No. 7 operates at a fairly quiet and intimately low 130
amplitude, and as a result is a largely cognitive exploration of how perceptual space may be
expanded or abstracted. For Hewn, I wanted to explore this perceptual expansion equally on
a bodily level as much as a cognitive one. By incorporating a multi-speaker spatial format,
along with the use of high-amplitude playback, the artwork is resultedly traversable as
opposed to simply interactive. Recalling the exhibited version at Testing Ground, each
emphatic climax of the soundtrack was powerful enough to not only be heard, but felt from
spaces outside of the immediate exhibition space, in spite of the semi-outdoor arrangement
of the site itself.
129 The ideal position for hearing the widest range of spatial information at the best fidelity. 130 Tom Stafford, Mind Hacks, 1st ed. (Sebastopol, California: O’Reilly Media, 2005), 154
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The development of Hewn draws additional inspiration from the sound design created by
Martin Stig Andersen for the video game Inside (2016). Set within a darkened 131
post-apocalyptic environment, Inside chronicles a small boy’s journey through decrepit
landscape and dilapidated, overbearing constructed environments. Within the game, the
protagonist eventually draws closer to entering a very large structure. This moment and
surrounding environment is sonified through an occluded, recurrent boom, one with an
insinuation of considerable mass and power. The occlusion results in a deep and powerful
rumble, with the structure shaking and scattering particulate with each muffled boom. As 132
discussed in Chapter 2, this kind of withholding of materialising indices prompts the
experiencer (player) to combine their imagination and uncertainty to attempt to fill in the
blanks. This particular sequence in Inside is a useful parallel to the examination of mystery
within this research project. This is with particular reference to discussion environmental
sublime as a means of rearticulating industrialised landscape. To continue the discussion, 133
both Hewn and Inside play upon an industrial parallel to “experiences of greatness beyond all
possible understanding, calculation, or imitation”. Where Brady calls upon mountains, 134
oceans, and storms, Hewn instead speaks to mechanical origins of uncanny, overwhelming
power.
Developmentally, the externalization and sonic bleed of Hewn in turn led to the creation of a
smaller supporting sound work. The Testing Grounds site features a latticed grid of steel
girders and poles, entitled ‘The Superstructure’, from which artworks, banners, and lighting 135
may be mounted. The Superstructure also features an eight-channel sound system spread
evenly across the lattice, allowing for near site-wide movement of sound across the various
speaker outputs. Such spatial variability provided a useful opportunity to extrapolate on the
obfuscated beckoning of the soundtrack to Hewn. This was achieved using gestural
131 Inside , video game 132 The video linked here features a playthrough of the sequence in question - note the lowpass filtering on the sound design prior to the door being opened, before eventually revealing the source of the booms. Additionally, this lowpass filtering returns whenever the player is occluded from the source of the shockwaves. “INSIDE Shockwave Puzzle”, YouTube, accessed 2018-09-18, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd4w_XFFOsk 133 As discussed in Chapter 3, with reference to Emily Brady. 134 Brady, The Environmental Sublime , 179-180 135 "Facilities Overview", Testing Grounds, accessed 2018-09-16, http://www.testing-grounds.com.au/article/facilities-gallery/
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movement to pan across the speakers, directing attention towards the room where Hewn was
exhibited. The panning gesture was executed in a quick and somewhat exaggerated manner,
referencing the ‘flyover’ style panning technique often used in action cinema. ‘Flyover’, in this
instance, speaks to the common representation of aircraft/spacecraft sound objects moving
quickly ‘over’ the audience, and onto the screen; literally so in the case of Dolby Atmos, and
other speaker formats where ceiling-mounted speaker positioning is used.
Fig. 8 - The Superstructure at Testing Grounds; note the two small black speaker boxes at intersection points
(comprising two of the total eight channels available in the playback system) [image courtesy of Testing Grounds]
This kind of attention-grabbing sonic gesture was intended to catch the ear of incidental
visitors at Testing Grounds, with a beacon-like pulse in the sound work signalling the end
point of the movement. This was subsequently reinforced by the muted rumble of the artwork
itself. The lattice sound work acted as a natural extension of the decisions made within the
artwork to encourage deeper engagement and immersion. Across the totality of Hewn, sound
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works as the key actuator, providing a form of sonic coercion.
The use of gesture also featured prominently in the actual soundtrack for Hewn, primarily as a
way of moving away from atemporal ‘sound states’ which had featured heavily in the project’s
creative ancestry. Within Location Study No. 7 , the soundtrack is intended to be atemporal
and unchanging. This is of course aside from the faint tonal oscillation within the recording of
the diesel generators, as well as the gestural bookending at the beginning and end of the
loop. Contrarily, within Hewn numerous gestural components are spread across the
soundtrack. This is inclusive of dramatic shifts in dynamics, inferred spatial perspective shifts
via reverb modulation, as well as distinct rebalancing of the irregular soundfield. These kinds
of additions to a sonic narrative create identifiable temporal markers within the unfolding
narrative of the work. This is in stark contrast to the atemporal and rarely changing slates of
broadband noise featured within Location Study No. 7 . By adding these gestural markers, I
was able to interrogate the temporal fluidity I had espoused in Chapter 2. The soundtrack for
Hewn still functions as an ‘endless’ looping playback format - arguably something necessary
for gallery-based installation purposes. Like the soundtrack for Location Study No. 7 , there is
no beginning or end that would be necessary in order to experience the work
comprehensively. In contrast, the addition of temporal markers results in an increased
saliency of the soundtrack. As the visual components within Hewn, though still atemporal,
evolved to encompass an expanded and varied field, the soundtrack was thus required to
increase in intensity and detail in order to maintain its status as primary conduit for expanded
narrative.
As established within this research project, sound, not vision, is the key actuator in affording
extended and abstracted perceptual engagement. As such, the decisions made within the
development of Hewn expanded the understanding as to how this can be achieved in an
installation-based sonic arts context.
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4.4 Wardens
The third major work completed for the research project marks a return to site specificity
within the practical investigation. As Location Study No. 7 and Hewn had explored audiovisual
principles of immersion within a gallery-based setting, Wardens sought to expand this
investigation of expanded and abstracted perceptual space outward. As is evident within the
discourse in Chapter 2, as well as in the prior creative practice reflection for Location Study
No. 7 and Hewn, gallery-based sonic arts installations rely on sound to communicate the
majority of the narrative and temporal information. This is provided the visual component of
the artwork is atemporal or non-existent. With regards to sense of place and subsequent
placial layering, these two works demonstrate an extended reliance on sound to act as the
primary salient stimulus. With Wardens, the site of exhibition/performance was significantly
more visually and sonically active than the previous works, despite the targets of sonification
being atemporal in and of themselves. The vending machines featured in the artwork are
atemporal objects, surrounded by the bustling local environment of shopfronts, street
vendors, pedestrians, and cyclists. As a result, the inherent site-specificity of Wardens marks
a more understated approach to perceptual engagement across this research project. Where
Location Study No. 7 and Hewn actively work to collate and synthesize a sense of place,
Wardens instead operates on a subtler level, shifting perception of established, everyday
constructed environment, and the sense of place inherent with its locality.
4.4.1 MOTIVE
The work itself is a performative installation; the actual performance took place over two days,
and was located in a shopping street in Higashiogu, Tokyo, Japan. Wardens was ultimately
developed in response to the placial rupture of Japanese vending machines (自動販売機
Jidouhanbaiki in Japanese), ever varied and ubiquitous in their deployment nationwide.
Having come across these machines in increasingly unlikely and seemingly unserviceable
locations (such as mountain summits, or on remote hiking trails), their often colourful liveries
created stark rupture amongst the deep, uninterrupted landscape.
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Fig. 9 - The six vending machines featured in Wardens, and the technical equipment driving the sound (bottom
right). The microphone pictured was part of a separate work/performance by another artist.
In response, Wardens was developed to create experiences guided by colourful sonic
rupture. This is in essence a further extension of ‘discoverable perspectives’ as explored in
the previous two works, driven by self-dependent discovery. I also wanted to test the merits
of a softer, more harmonious approach to the sound design, in responding to the
eye-catching bold colour choices used in the visual aesthetic of the machines. As the
machines themselves exist to provide snacks, sweets, and drinks, so too could the sound
design be as fulfilling, and pleasantly non-essential. This was also an effort to experiment with
a contrasting sound palette to that which had been established in the two previous works, as
well as a long line of works prior.
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Fig. 10 - The shopping street in which the Wardens vending machines were located
Prior to and during this research project, I have maintained a sonic arts performance practice,
informed equally by audio synthesis and by my experience as a drummer and percussionist.
This was historically kept separate to the kinds of sonic arts installation practice on which the
research had fixated. This was reflective of a decision to keep the placial representation in the
sonic components as honest and emotionally non-manipulative as possible. As stated in
Chapter 2, the sonic methodology for each of the previous works drew largely from
soundscape studies and acoustic ecology. Thus I resolved that an introduction of musical
harmony or melody in such a setting would dictate the feeling of the artwork far too heavily. In
the context of Wardens, the place of performance/exhibition was already present with a very
active sonic environment, perhaps the most active of the local Higashiogu suburb.
Considering this, I reasoned that introduction of an additional displaced sonic environment
was too combative for the softer approach I had intended to follow. Furthermore, the limits of
the sound playback technology (in this case, 3” speakers without enclosures) dictated a harsh
restriction on available fidelity. As a result, the kinds of high-detail, transparent recordings
common to soundscape studies would have been reduced to fairly anaemic endings. In
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response to this issue, I chose to pursue a sound pallette closer to that of my performance
practice, featuring a source material close to that of simple square wave oscillators. The
actual sonic components for Wardens were comprised primarily of electromagnetic
recordings of the vending machines themselves - I had made the decision to use
electromagnetic recordings as a way to continue the dialogue of perceptual
extension/abstraction, achieved through a rearticulation of the inner, hidden sonic potential of
the machines themselves. Such a recording method and presentation enabled the work to
sonify a presence which in itself does not sound acoustically.
4.4.2 PROCESS
Inductive microphones were first utilised to make recordings of the electromagnetic outputs
of each of the six vending machines located in the Ogu Ginza shopping street in Higashiogu.
This was achieved by scanning the machines to finds parts of internal circuitry which would
emit useful signals, and thus translate into interesting sounds - this is a similar process to one
used by Japanese sound artist Haco within her Stereo Bugscope performances and
recordings. As a happy accident, the resulting frequencies collected from the machines 136
were already emitted as steady waveforms, with a sound not unlike a simple square wave
oscillator. Moreover, the various collected frequencies naturally aligned themselves into a
reasonably consonant harmonic grouping, and thus only minor re-pitching was required in
order to achieve the desired tonal grouping for the work overall. These samples were
subsequently edited to enable smooth looping (free of obvious start and end points), to be
featured in the subsequent generative and performative installation. In effect, each sample
became its own mini sound-state.
The speaker placement spatialised the sound into six discrete channels, with a speaker
located underneath each vending machine. The spatial arrangement of the speakers was
intended to add a sense of movement to the atemporal objects they represented. To achieve
this, I set the rate of each amplitude-modulating LFO to a unique number, resulting in an 137
136 “Bio”, Haco - artist website, accessed 2018-09-18, http://www.hacohaco.net/haco/bio_english.html 137 Low frequency oscillator
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extremely long phase cycle amongst the group of available outputs. LFOs are commonly
used to modulate variables in sound effects processing - in this instance, the LFOs were
controlling the rate at which the amplitude of each channel would increase and decrease in
succession. As an aside, the combination of LFO rates utilised within Wardens resulted in an
extremely variable and large number of potential harmonic combinations. This, in conjunction
with the equally variable combinations of amplitudes, made for a fluid and changing potential
sound work. This was, and is key to facilitating ‘performative installation’ in this context. The
high number of options from which to comprise the tonal clusters on the fly allows for
performative variability, yet beyond those artistic decisions the work maintains a natural sense
of variation through subtle drifting between modulating operators. This balances the hybrid
approach to the work, letting myself as a performer be present in its unfolding, yet also
allowing the presence of the artist to be removed from public engagement with the work.
The choice to embrace tonality in the sonic component of the work also welcomes with it a
sense of emotional resonance. As stated, the natural pitch of each of the initial inductive
recordings led themselves to require close to no pitch processing at all. Incidentally, the result
directly reflected the target feeling outlined within early development of the artwork: joyous,
welcoming, yet unresolved. The inherent consonance in the first two criteria was intended to
create a response to the colourful visual aesthetic of the machines themselves. In addition,
the desire for lack of resolution was an effort to further situate the work within the realm of
performative installation. The approach to timeline in Wardens is derived directly from the
gallery-based sonic arts methodologies of removing beginnings and endings, which provides
equal opportunity for audience members to engage at any point without deficit. The ‘lack of
resolution’ in actuality was achieved due to the inherent open-endedness of the chord
structures employed in the performance, the majority of which were suspended chords, or
major pentatonic derivatives. Although the exact number of tonal combinations used during
the performance is unknown, these two harmonic categories sufficiently represent the most
common arrangements used. The choice to use suspended chords was intentional, and not a
result of the aforementioned happy accident. Harmonically, suspended chords float between
the worlds of major and minor chords, seeming to function in any harmonic situation,
regardless of key or tonality. Additionally, suspended chords exhibit a fullness to their sound,
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while at the same time open-ended and harmonically ambiguous, due to the lack of other
defining tonal markers. The major pentatonic pitchset also contributes to the unresolved 138
feeling in the work, due to its inherent lack of strong leading notes (which insinuate a need to
resolve to proximal pitches). Interestingly, a number of comments from locals stated that 139
Wardens “sounded like Japan”; a rather general reference, later understood to have meant
similar to Gagaku , a traditional Japanese court music style. Perhaps this comparison is due to
a prevalence of open, droning chord clusters in Gagaku , or perhaps it is due to the use of
pentatonic scales in traditional Japanese music more generally. The phasing amplitude 140
modulation likewise added to the lack of resolve, with the chance of a unison completed
phase cycle inclusive of all six output channels being highly improbable within the allotted
performance times.
The suggested spatial field evident within Wardens is understood within the context of this
research as both extended perceptual space, and abstracted perceptual space
simultaneously. In a cinematic context, it is extremely rare for these two distinctions of
perceptual extension to coincide. Excluding unique moments where score drifts between
diegetic and non-diegetic (such as in the 2014 film Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of
Ignorance) where both the percussion and orchestral features in the score are eventually
materialised by onscreen performers), musical elements can abstract perceptual extension,
but they seldom extend a frame directly at the same time. Likewise, sound design often
extends a frame, but does not abstract it in the same instance. Extension and abstraction are
separate tasks, the former often represented by separate modes of sound design, such as
materialising foley and sound effects. This is in contrast with atmospheric ‘musical sound
design’, which begins to bleed into the realm of score, and subsequently the realm of
abstraction. With Wardens, the ebbing and flowing clusters of chords presents an abstraction
to that of the inherently non-musical local sonic environment, yet the abstraction in and of
itself is extended with the use of long-decay reverb in the playback. In essence, the use of
138 Matt Warnock, "Deconstructing Sus Chords." Acoustic Guitar, 06, 2011, 34-35, 37-39, https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/docview/878605415?accountid=13552 , 34 139 Edward Aldwell, Carl Schachter, and Allen Cadwallader, Harmony and Voice-Leading , fourth edition (New York: Schirmer/Cengage Learning, 2010), 60 140 Willi Apel, Harvard Dictionary of Music (Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1972), 433
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reverb in the performances accentuates the presented spatial disparity between the
rearticulated inner space of the machines and the local environment surrounding them. The
suggested spatial extension of Wardens also differs significantly from Location Study No. 7
and Hewn. With particular reference to the former, incessancy and close feeling of proximity
to the presented sound object creates a sense of intimacy, notwithstanding the intensity of
the soundtrack. In this instance, I argue the intimacy of the listening experience closes the
metaphoric gap between artwork and experiencer. With Wardens, the use of expansive reverb
treatment evokes a more traditional cinematic experience, raising the artwork above the
experiencer into an idealistic space. This also highlights the difference in application between
reverb as an impressionistic activation of space on a functional level, as opposed to a
metaphoric or emotional level evident within abstracted perceptual extension. On reflection,
the space created by the reverberant, elated swells of Wardens raises further questions as to
the function of the feeling of reverb. Namely, did the intuition to use reverb arise from what
the work is communicating functionally about the environment, and the spectacle of the kind
of juxtaposition inherent within it? Or, was it more a product of enculturation to the cinematic,
a reflection of the wistful musings of the traditional cinematic soundtrack?
The discourse generated by Wardens marks further conceptual separation from the first two
major works. Location Study No. 7 and Hewn both infer a sense of the functional site as an
audiovisual experience; the soundtracks to both works are intentionally evocative of a
secondary sense of place to that of the art objects situated within the gallery spaces. Within
these first two works, sound abstracts the perception of the immediate art objects via a
metadiegesis of sound, suggesting a virtual sense of place with which to layer upon the
presented sense of place within the attendant visual field. With Wardens, sound instead
colours and expands the perceived spatial field of the vending machines, with open and
consonant harmonic content ringing out into an inferred space of vast proportions. As the
clustered harmonies of Wardens resonate, a discoverable spatial bubble is created within the
local perceptual field of the vending machines.
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4.5 Envoys
Fig. 11 - Early studio documentation of Envoys
The initial development for Envoys arose from the identification of a major limitation within
Wardens. Essentially, placial versatility in Wardens is wholly dictated by a reliance on existing
subjects: vending machines in situ. Consequently, any future iterations of the work would be
ultimately bound by the placial context of the vending machines’ local environment. Granted,
there does exist an amount of placial variability, as is demonstrated in the ubiquity of the
machines nationwide, yet it is not boundless. In reflecting on the exploration of remote,
non-constructed landscapes navigated in Location Studies 1 - 5 , I resolved that an evolution
of a work such as Wardens could not replicate the same kinds of investigative expedition
present in those prior works. Thus, in order for Envoys to comprehensively explore ideas of
perceptual extension and abstraction in truly varying environments, the work would need to
free itself of the anchoring of preordained locality.
As a result, the ability to freely choose the place of visual and sonic rupture stands as the key
motivating factor in the development of Envoys. This is clear response to the issue of limited
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placial variability outlined in reflections post-Wardens. As such, portability became a major
element in the initial design of Envoys. An originating plan for an expansion of the Wardens
concept involved acquiring a number of Japanese vending machines to leverage the placial
versatility of the work. Unfortunately, this gave rise to more questions than it did answers.
Aside from the problematic cultural ‘gimmick’ factor inherent within displacement of Japanese
vending machines into the Australian environment, a significant fault with this original planned
expansion was its highlighting of a recurring theme of ‘natural vs constructed’ environments.
This is a theme that has played a significant part in my works completed prior to beginning
this research project, yet as it is not a key part of the research foci, I have made a significant
effort to avoid theoretical examination of this thematic dichotomy, and by so doing clarify the
focus of the research. In order to achieve this in the context of Envoys, the visual aesthetic of
the vending machine is reduced to its most essential forms.
Fig. 12 - Pretty Valley, Bogong High Plains, June 2013 / Bogong Power Station Information Centre November
2013 (site image) by Geoff Robinson [image courtesy of Geoff Robinson]
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Colour, shape, and visibility of technical audio peripherals are all distilled to a functional
minimum. By so doing, distracting elements of the work are lessened, allowing a focus on the
pure sonic and visual interaction with the surrounding environment. In part, the visual
aesthetic was inspired by the practices of Australian sound artist Geoff Robinson, with
specific reference to his works exploring site overlay and sonic cartography. As seen in Fig.
12, Robinson uses brightly coloured sculptural objects to mark positioning of his expedition in
the natural environment, to be later overlayed at a separate site for performance. Where
Robinson’s art objects mark a transient presence of the artist and a forecast of future sonic
events, Envoys instead merges the two together, creating visual and sonic rupture in the
attendant environment coterminously.
Wardens and Envoys are distinct from Location Study No. 7 and Hewn in their lack of
sampled natural materials. This departure, particularly in the case of Envoys, lets the
supporting sculptural forms operate as the primary visual media in the immediate visual field
of the artwork. With regards to both the site-specific works, the ‘exhibition space’ itself
instead fills the presence of ‘natural’ materials, as performance and presentation in situ
relinquishes the ultimate sonic and visual control of the white-walled gallery space. Evidently,
the first two works in this research project sought to synthesise virtual senses of place
through a collage of sound and vision, inclusive of samples natural materials. Outside the
gallery space, sound becomes the true salient stimulus within engagement with the artwork;
in the context of Envoys, the reduction in visual distinction amplifies this effect even more so.
4.5.1 PROCESS
The structure of the art object itself in Envoys is comprised of a plinth, housing speakers,
lighting, playback, and the necessary portable power requirements to ‘exhibit’ the artwork in
geographical freedom. The top quarter of the object is made entirely of translucent white
acrylic, with a light housed inside illuminating it in its entirety, akin to a light box. The sound is
presented through four speakers, one for each of the four side faces of the work. Early
sketches for the Envoys structure had a glass box top instead of the eventual frosted acrylic
lighting element - the original concept for the glass was to underlight chosen objects from the
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surrounding area, drawing a creative lineage to the backlit visual aesthetic in Location Study
No. 7. This was soon thereafter changed to a wholly frosted perspex box to sit atop the
structure, thus turning the previous display area into a light beacon of sorts.
Fig. 13 - The vending machines featured in Wardens after dark - the backlit appearance was a strong reference
moving forward into the development of Envoys
The decision against the backlighting of objects preempted a similar theoretical and
conceptual instability to that of using premade vending machines. In this case, the concept of
a backlit display box again raised numerous questions, namely that of reasoning the
significance of what is chosen to be displayed. The frosted perspex top continues the
aesthetic throughline from Location Study No. 7 , and draws visual reference from the many
backlit vending machines encountered after dark in Japan (see Fig. 13), as well as the
luminous visual rupture of phone booths at night. The concept of a visual beacon fit the
existing sonic motive, and would in turn lead to a far greater potential discoverable field
generated by the work than that of Wardens. This was largely due to the upgraded capacity of
the speakers themselves, with the new speakers used for Envoys capable of reproducing a
much wider frequency band at significantly higher volumes. The speakers themselves were
also arranged to output in four separate directions, allowing for wider coverage in the
surrounding area. As a result of both the improved light and sound abilities, Envoys is able to
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be seen and heard from further away. This expands the artwork’s field of engagement well
beyond the somewhat intimate, and heavily localised setting of Wardens. This concept of an
audiovisual beacon is developed with reference to the iterative site specific Spectra series
created by Japanese electronic composer and visual artist Ryoji Ikeda, with specific reference
to the work featured as part of the 2013 Dark Mofo festival in Hobart, Tasmania. Experiencing
the work in person during the festival, I was taken by the sheer distance that the sound of the
work would carry (more than 500m in some cases). The ubiquity of the high-frequency
sonar-like ‘pips’ in the soundtrack, in combination with the forty nine high powered xenon
searchlights, resulted in an expansive far-field of engagement. This drew experiencers in 141
toward the near-field presentation of the work: an 8.2 channel sound system revealing a
localised spatial sonic experience, situated directly amongst the sources of the high-powered
light fixtures.
Envoys similarly employs high-frequency, high amplitude tonal bursts to attract attention, with
a subtler, more harmonically rich characteristic exhibited within the near-field sonic
presentation. To achieve this, the sonic components for Envoys expand directly on ideas of
sonic rupture, musicality, and unresolvedness explored in Wardens. Where Wardens explores
a rearticulation of internal sounds to create a basis for its soundtrack and conversation of
placial sensing, Envoys instead offers a more direct investigation of perceptual extension and
abstraction within a site specific context. As such, the source material for Envoys is entirely
synthesized, and as a result uses no pre-recorded material in its composition. This allowed for
as nuanced as possible an exploration of tone, texture, and pitch variation within the creation
of the soundtrack, and by so doing extract for further development the most impacting
aspects of the new tonal approach established within Wardens. Prior to field-testing the
finished art-object, I was able to perform a live test of the Envoys soundtrack as part of a
performance for the 2018 Artland exhibition. This provided a unique opportunity to relocate
the studio developmental experience, and thus be able to performatively test different
balances of tonal structure, sonic gesture, and harmonic emphasis in situ.
141 Obverse to near-field
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A significant dialogue which has arisen from comparisons between the four works completed
for this research project is centered on the sonic experience of drone. Drone is defined as the
presence of a constant layer of stable pitch with no noticeable variation in intensity, with
drones often observed in urban and industrial soundscapes. I have long been intrigued by 142
the drone effect, as is evident in my use of drone in the majority of previous artworks and
performance practices, as well as in compositional inspiration from artists who regularly work
with drone, such as: Alvin Lucier, Phill Niblock, Sunn O))), and La Monte Young. The use of
the drone effect in so much of this research project is due to what I consider a truly immersive
magnetism evident within the respective listening experience. As is the case in more general
minimal listening experiences, when one is exposed to ongoing, static sounds, we are more
likely to notice small changes to the edges of a piece of music, and even may enter a pseudo
trance-like state. It is this potential for entrancement that I argue heightens the immersive 143
experience of a sound work. Yet if there are no changes to be perceived at the edges of the
listening experience (outside of amplitude modulation, in the case of Wardens) then the
immersive experience of the work has a potential to quickly become stale.
In essence, the sonic rupture of the work in situ may be enough for initial engagement, yet
further immersion thereafter requires the experiencer be kept within the discovered soundfield
for longer than the simple moment of piqued interest. In the context of Location Study No. 7
and Hewn , the source material is of non-digital, non-synthesized origin, and thus is inherently
encoded with an extremely high amount of natural variation in its sonic experience, albeit
variation that is largely indeterminate (an example of a persistent and ongoing point of
contention in the debate between digital and analogue recording methods). As such, a major
limitation of the ‘performative installation’ methodology used for Wardens was its reliance on
myself as the performer/artist to dictate major state changes in the source material. Outside
of the subtle amplitude modulation created by the LFOs, each state/chordal cluster within
Wardens was comprised of fixed tones. In response to this issue, Envoys employs an
expanded modulation methodology, wherein the frequencies of the sounding tones
142 Augoyard et al, The Sonic Experience, 40 143 Cat Hope, “The Wonderment of the Bleak - Sculpting the Static” Art Monthly Australia, 225 (Nov 2009), https://search-informit-com-au.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/documentSummary;dn=118655742586238;res=IELLCC, 47
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themselves are not ultimately fixed. As a result, the overall harmonic balancing of each chord
cluster subtly morphs and changes over time, creating a further expanded sense of
unresolvedness in the work. By so doing, this leverages the sonic component of the work out
of the distinctly digital world, encoding it with an ongoing and statistically random character
akin to that of its field recorded predecessors.
4.6 SUMMARY
In this chapter I have charted the development of the practical component of this research
project across four main works: Location Study No. 7 , Hewn, Wardens, and Envoys. This has
provided a comprehensive account of the creative and technical reasoning behind each work,
extrapolated within the context of artistic motive, and methodology/process respectively. I
have investigated the individual ways in which each work responds to sense of place, and
how different mechanisms of engagement contribute to a sense of immersion within the
experience of each artwork. Moreover, the investigation is divided into two overarching
categories: gallery-based sonic arts, and site specific sonic arts. The former examined how
the artworks synthesize a sense of place through placial layering, where the latter focused on
how sound impacts on pre-existing place and environment. I have examined the methodology
of each work in the context of ‘expanded perceptual space’ and ‘abstracted perceptual
space’.
In the context of the works specifically, I have traced the creative evolution across the four
works, and by so doing identified the developmental lineage from each work to the next. For
Location Study No. 7 , I discussed the manipulation of materialising indices to create mystery,
examples of choice architecture, as well as the experiential merits of headphone versus
speaker playback. This lattermost discourse also highlighted the inception of ‘discoverable
perspectives’ in the practical component of the research project. For Hewn, I outlined the
expansion of the work outwards to encompass the totality of the exhibition space as an
immersive field. I demonstrated my thinking around experimentation with extended speaker
playback techniques, and discussed the merits of high-amplitude playback and bodily
listening in this context. For Wardens, I marked the change of focus in the research from
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gallery-based to site specific. I discussed ideas of sonic rupture, and outlined the reasoning
behind a move away from strict field recording based compositions. Moreover, I noted an
embracing of a previously excluded performance practice as a way to bridge toward a more
musical approach to sonic composition. I also highlighted the use of live modulation as a way
to create indeterminacy and lack of resolve in the work, in an effort to further extend
experimentation with principles of immersion. For Envoys, I demonstrated a further refinement
of the musical ideas explored in Wardens, with specific examination of the use of drone, and
further use of live modulation. I also outlined the methodology behind artwork as a beacon,
and the expansion of potential engagement with the artwork from near-field to far-field.
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Chapter 5:
Conclusions and future research
5.1 INTRODUCTION
This project is the result of a number of initial motivating factors. Firstly, as a practitioner with
a history of work with screen-based media, I had a desire to recontextualise cinematic
principles of immersion outside of screen culture. The inherent limitations of a screen-based
audiovisual background dictate understanding of creative development within a broader sonic
arts practice, and thus needed to be expanded upon. Secondly, I have sought to establish
and define a research framework for a philosophy of placial sensing within the listening
experience. This is something that would not only resonate with my practice, but would also
contribute to an understanding of how certain creative decisions relate to a greater
philosophy of listening. As such, this research has benefitted from a range of disciplinary
perspectives. The cinematic experience and its theoretical framework is not without an
abundance of reference, yet it is but one instance of audiovisuality more broadly within the
arts. By expanding the range of analytical tools outside of the framework of cinema, I have
been able to examine a far richer range of perspectives on perception and immersion in
audiovisual experience.
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5.2 KEY FINDINGS
The key findings of this research project can be summarised as follows:
1. The term ‘offscreen’ is ultimately limited in its application, and is thereby insufficient for
discussing perceptual extension/abstraction of visual media in anything other than a
screenic context. In its place, I propose new terminology: ‘extended perceptual space’
as a substitution for ‘localised offscreen’, and ‘abstracted perceptual space’ as a
substitution for ‘unlocalised offscreen’.
2. In non-screenic, atemporal visual contexts, sound becomes the primary salient
stimulus as vehicle for a sense of temporality in a work. This is due to the visual
media’s inability to offer any sense of temporality of its own, thereby ceding temporal
authority to sound.
3. The immersive experience of the ‘superfield’ is not driven by technology, and is instead
a function of perception in sound-space. As such, even within monaural playback
contexts, perception-as-interpretation is at the core of the ‘superfield’ experience,
reflected in the participant. Moreover, personal context and imagination play significant
roles in defining perceptual spaces.
4. ‘Sound as virtual place’ defines a philosophical understanding of the listening
experience subsequent to perception-as-interpretation. It is categorised as ‘place’ as
place in and of itself is space which has been shaped by personal interpretation.
Moreover, the Japanese spatio-temporal concept of Ma provides the most
comprehensive understanding of the neutral intermediary space from which sound as
virtual place arises; post-hearing, and pre-listening.
5. Perceptual engagement with a work is ultimately driven by self-dependent discovery.
By extension, intentional withholding/limiting of detail (spectral and/or contextual) in a
work actuates a means for self-dependent discovery, achieved primarily through an
engineering of a sense of mystery and/or anamnesis. This is realised within the
practical component of the research project in the form of ‘additional discoverable
perspectives’, wherein participants are afforded alternate experiences of a work,
accessed subsequently to a base-level experience.
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6. Gallery-based sonic arts and site-specific/site-responsive sonic arts installations are
wholly distinct in their approach to placial sensing. Gallery-based sonic arts
installations synthesize a sense of place as a result of whatever contributing elements
comprise the artwork, due to the gallery itself being a space devoid of placial context.
Site-specific/site-responsive sonic arts instead respond directly to existing placial
context, and by so doing create points of sonic and visual rupture through which to
exhibit the artwork in situ.
5.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS REVISITED
I. In what ways can cinematic principles of immersion and audiovisuality inform
sound theory and practice in a fine arts context?
Through systematic knowledge of audiovision in a cinematic context I have identified the
need for expansion in the theoretical language of audiovisuality. At the same time, I have
demonstrated that cinematic principles of immersion can be usefully applied in a fine arts
context, provided conceptual understanding follows the same expansion. Sonic arts practices
have of course existed outside of cinematic practices indefinitely, yet technical and theoretical
understanding of audiovisuality have gone largely undeveloped outside of a cinematic
context. Thus there exists a potential abundance of ways in which cinematic principles of
immersion and audiovisuality can inform sound theory and practice in a fine arts context, the
majority of which are centered around a greater understanding of perceptual engagement.
The most fundamental concept required to afford an effective transposition from cinema to
broader fine-arts context is that of a substitution of screen for visual aesthetic field, and in
turn greater perceptual field when inclusive of a combined audiovisual experience. This is in
direct response to the issue of audiovisuality in the context of atemporal visual media, which
in and of itself, regardless of situation within gallery or expanded exhibition context, denotes
a departure from screen. As the cinematic frame consequently no longer overshadows
creative development in an artwork, the sonic superfield becomes the dominant vehicle
through which to actuate transposed principles of immersion.
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II. How can these principles of immersion influence perception of place via sound?
With a direct understanding of cinematic principles of immersion, I have been able to
transpose existing cinematic audiovisual theory into a broader fine arts context. This allows a
direct porting of techniques used to influence placial perception, and is presented in the form
of three key terms: extended perceptual space, abstracted perceptual space, and sound as
virtual place. The first, extended perceptual space, allows for a direct extension of the
perceived placial field of a visual media. ‘Field’ is used in this instance to represent the
method by which one engages with a work. Thus an extended field of an artwork takes the
direct visual aesthetic narrative and extends it through sound, doing so in a manner that is
logical and predictable. An example of this is as follows: we see an art object comprised of
sampled seawater, and in turn we hear the sound of an ocean. Extended perceptual space
influences perception of place by adding localised depth to the placial context that an
experiencer forms through engagement with an artwork.
The second term, abstracted perceptual space, allows for abstraction of the perceived placial
field of a visual media, usually achieved through placial layering. An abstracted field of an
artwork is one in which the visual aesthetic narrative is paired with an entirely different placial
context through sound. By so doing, sound affords a multilayered approach to narrative
within an artwork. An example of this is as follows: we see the same art object comprised of
seawater, yet in this instance we hear the sound of a cacophonous factory environment, full
of heavy industrial machinery. Abstracted perceptual space influences perception of place
through a metadiegetic suggestion of alternate placial character.
The third and final term, sound as virtual place, identifies the perceptual platform from which
manipulation of placial perception arises. Sound as virtual place categorises the essential role
sound plays in defining placial context when paired with atemporal visual media. While this
term does not describe a method, it provides a critical understanding of an important factor in
the listening experience, with particular reference to formation of placial sensing. As such,
sound as virtual place posits the intermediary cognitive space afforded through the listening
experience. It is a space where perception is codified through personal interpretation, and
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thus results in placial sensing. In summary, sound as virtual space influences perception of
place via an understanding that cinematic principles of immersion are actuated ultimately by
perceptual interpretation.
III. How might this be explored in the context of my arts practice?
The works outlined within this research project provide a range of examples of how such
forms of analysis can lead to works that engage with placial perception in an audiovisual
context, existing in an exclusively non-screenic realm. Location Study No. 7 presents sound
and atemporal visual media to achieve placial layering. In so doing, it explores the differences
between speaker and headphone listening, and the depth of perceptual engagement each
method offers independently, or in succession as an experience of additional discoverable
perspective. The compositional focus for this work was to create an intimate, focused vehicle
for immersion within a gallery-based, non-screenic audiovisual experience.
Hewn examines an expansion of perceptual engagement outward to encompass the gallery
space itself as the entirety of the installation. In so doing, it outlines issues of spatiality in
non-headphone playback, and in turn explores the concept of bodily listening. The
compositional focus for this work was an exploration of perceptual engagement in a context
antithetical to that of the previous work, and how placial sensing acts accordingly.
Wardens investigates ideas of expanded and abstracted perceptual engagement in a
site-specific/site-responsive context. In so doing, it recontextualizes the discourse of placial
sensing, from a gallery-based synthesis of place, to one of audiovisual rupture in-situ, as well
as response to attendant placial context. The compositional focus of the work marks a
departure from exclusively non-musical field recording based sonic components, to a practice
inclusive of harmonic, as well as performative sensibilities.
Envoys continues the investigation of audiovisual rupture in response to placial sensing. In
doing so, it further explores extended and abstracted perceptual engagement with free
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choice of placial context, actioned through the portability of the work itself. The compositional
focus for the work is centered on the issue of both far-field as well as near-field engagement
in audiovisual perception. As such, the work further developed concepts of randomness and
instability in the sonic components in order to create drone compositions sympathetic to that
of their organic surroundings in situ.
5.4 FUTURE RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS
There are a number of research possibilities generated by this project that warrant further
exploration, the most significant of which is a dedicated investigation into the headphone
listening experience. Such an investigation is driven by a view toward headphones as a
creative tool, rather than simply a useful solution for problems of unwanted sound in a local
environment. This avenue of questioning also invites further investigation of reverb processing
as a means for feeling, instead of function spatial manipulation.
Within a fine arts context, the role of headphone listening is often a solution to other
problems, before a creative choice in and of itself. This is most commonly manifested in the
case of excluding unwanted sound, such as in a gallery installation, or a situation where
speaker playback of subtle content may not translate as clearly as headphone presentation
would. However, as a result of neighbouring technological advancement, and perhaps a shift
in attitudes toward headphones more generally, headphones are becoming a valid alternative
choice for creative presentation of sound works. A recent theatre work entitled The Encounter
(2015) provides an excellent example of contemporary reimagining of the headphone listening
experience. The piece, created by Complicite and Simon McBurney, required every member
of the audience to wear a set of headphones, through which to listen to the performance. The
ensuing soundtrack was performed by the actor, as well as two sound operators, the former
captured live by a set of binaural microphones onstage. Music and sound design featured 144
the same presentation platform, and thus mixed with the binaural transposition of the live
performance, creating an aural engagement located entirely within the audience members’
heads. The works itself is a compelling examination of the performer/audience binary, with
144 Lynne Kendrick, Theatre Aurality, (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2017), xvii
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not only sound but headphones as the key actuator of the discourse. This kind of creative
approach to sound in theatre sits adjacent to a flurry of recent publications exploring sound in
theatre and the phenomenon of audience, and highlights the inherent interest in examining 145
the topic further.
Outside of theater, there is presently a wealth of information with regards to the technical,
psychoacoustic understanding of headphone listening. As such, the scientific knowledge
behind the mechanics of head-related transfer functions (specifically in the context of 146
headphones) has provided excellent platforms from which to further develop how we listen.
As a result, the current expanded spatial arena is no longer limited to that of acousmoniums 147
and large speaker arrays, with ‘3D’ sound technologies — such as binaural recording and
ambisonics — allowing wholly immersive three-dimensional movement in the soundfield,
localised entirely within one’s own head. A somewhat recent resurgence of interest in
expanded spatial sound technology can certainly be attributed to advancements in virtual
reality (VR) capability, represented through the commercial successes of platforms such as
Oculus VR, HTC Vive, and Playstation VR. In what is arguably the visual equivalent of
headphones, a truly immersive experience of VR relies on sound to ‘sell’ the illusion of a
fabricated 3D visual field. Historically, the emphasis has typically been placed on the visual 148
aspects of VR (resolution, latency, tracking) to legitimise the experience, yet now audio is
“catching up” in order to provide the greatest sense of presence possible. Even within 149
popular non-VR video games, developers are consistently adding and improving complex
sound spatialization features to further deepen the immersive experience, as is in the case of
leading titles such as Fortnite , and Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds. Both of these games 150 151
145 Ibid., xx 146 A system that characterizes how an ear receives a sound from a point in space. 147 In reference to the sound diffusion system designed in 1974 by Francois Bayle, and used originally by the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) at the Maison de Radio France. 148 “For VR to be truly immersive, in needs convincing sound to match”, Mona Lalwani, Engadget, accessed 2018-09-28, https://www.engadget.com/2016/01/22/vr-needs-3d-audio/ 149 “Introduction to Virtual Reality Audio - Overview”, Oculus Developer Center, accessed 2018-09-28, https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/audiosdk/latest/concepts/audio-intro-overview/ 150 “Can You Hear Me Walking? - Spatial Audio Updates”, The Fortnite Team, Epic Games, accessed 2018-09-28, https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/can-you-hear-me-walking-spatial-audio-updates 151 “On Recent Sound Design Changes”, Mephiekim, Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds on Steam, accessed 2018-09-28, https://steamcommunity.com/games/578080/announcements/detail/1651012249539060705
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focus on PVP gameplay, and thus see players using sound localization as a key gameplay 152
mechanic in order to detect other players and player activities in the game environment; in the
case of Fortnite , the sound localization is such a crucial part of gaining a competitive
advantage that it is extremely uncommon to see any high-level players not wearing
headphones.
Yet aside from the inherent adoption of headphone-related spatial sound technology, there
remains a gap in the theoretical understanding of the headphone listening experience.
Namely, what drives the choice to pursue the headphone experience as a tool for creative
presentation of sonic material. If we derive an answer from a recent survey of wearable device
technologies, the outstanding reason for headphone use is simply that users perceive them
as “cool”, with any other contributing factors at this point unknown. Perhaps if the 153
researchers in this instance had derived their feedback from users of any other brand of
headphone than Beats by Dre, one which is arguably successful only due to a combination of
celebrity-adjacency, marketing, and brand identity, then we may have a better understanding
as to the social motivators of choosing to listen on headphones. This kind of quantitative
approach, along with the sorts of scientific research methods found within psychoacoustic
research, is important in further developing adjacent spatial sound technologies. Yet a hybrid
methodology, inclusive of additional creative or philosophical perspectives, could most
certainly provide an extended platform from which to better answer these persisting
questions in what is arguably still a burgeoning technological field.
As stated at the beginning of this section, this kind of questioning is also relevant to further
investigation into the function of reverb, with specific reference to the feeling that its
experience imparts, and less to its technical mechanisms. Like headphones, the role of reverb
is most commonly one of technical solution. With history as a practicing sound designer, I
most commonly have used reverb in instances of direct perceptual extension, adding spatial
depth to environmental narrative. Yet within my practice as a musician, my use of reverb has
been far more a creative choice than a functional one, as there is no real necessity for
152 Player-versus-player. 153 Patrick Reinelt, Shewit Hadish, and Claus-Peter H. Ernst, “How Design Influences Headphone Usage” in The Drivers of Wearable Device Usage, ed. Claus-Peter H. Ernst (Switzerland: Springer, 2016), 59
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perceptual extension in the realm of music. In such a context, reverb becomes a creative,
intuitive tool. Common applications include its use as a subtle ‘glue’ to bind a mix of
instrumental components together, or to add explosive impact, as is the case in many drum
recordings in heavier music genres such as Doom, Sludge, and Post-Metal. Of course, the
use of reverb in music is an extensively varied topic, and thus would require a significantly
dedicated musicological research effort to approach a better understanding of the question at
hand. It is important to note that this questioning is not exclusive to music, with any situation
outside of direct perceptual extension warranting inquiry.
As this section suggests, there is considerably more research to be done on the matter.
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