Output details

Enhancing audio encounters with the natural world

This research investigated how phenomenologicial encounters with sound can be enhanced in audio works which feature recordings of wildlife and natural events.

The primary research questions focused on:

•How can audio reproduction and soundfield re-construction methods support the affordance of information by the materials and environments featured in audio works (after J.J. Gibson’s ecological theories (1979) and A. Bregman’s Auditory Scene Analysis (1990))?

•How might improved affordances enhance the phenomenological experience of the work?

My research progressed through compositional investigations, installation design and collaboration with other artists (for which I created audio controlling software and collaborated on spatialisation of the work), and through live 3D audio performances. Outcomes were realized in a series of international installations and performances including Jana Winderen’s Ultrafield, commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013); installations and performances in collaboration with Chris Watson (Australia and UK); field recording collaborations and residencies, including LISTEN Aldeburgh 2009 (Paul Hamlin Trust), Iceland 2012 (Photon); compositions including Aldeburgh Beach Sequence (Myatt) Roundabout (Myatt/Haswell); and installations in Oslo, Montreal, New York and London.

Taken together, these outputs manifest the findings that arise from the project’s sustained investigations of:

•2D and 3D recording techniques to capture information relating to sounding objects,

•the combination of a number of multi-channel audio reproduction methods;

•3D sound field construction methods;

•the development of bespoke loudspeaker arrays to support attributes of individual artworks;

•the development of spatial audio manipulation software for live performance.

Electronic music that features field recordings often relies on stereo or mono recordings to reproduce our experience of the natural world. Enhanced audio presentations can provide more phenomenological encounters with sound materials, and bring the original spaces, audio sources and contextualizing environments anew within the remit of sound artists, particularly in the context of installation art and contemporary performance.