PhD Application
Emma shared with me an advertisement to a PhD program at Greenwich University's School of Design, entitled 'Environmental Aesthetics - Sound/ Image/ Space'. Which asked for...
Proposals that explore the creative potentials of the latest immersive technologies – spatial audio, photogrammetry, film, VR etc, to address environmental concerns
Naturally this is strikingly similar to my current research and so I took this week to form my application.
PhD Detailed Proposal
Sounds that Surround: The contemporary aesthetic of Immersion and the environmental consequence of noise
Keywords: Environmental Pollution, Sound Installation, Activism, Digital Technologies, Contemporary Art
We are Living in a time after the future. In Franco Berardi’s book After the Future (2011) he diagnoses our current cultural climate as one that is filled with ‘lost futures’, our capacity of how we can imagine a future far different from the one we live in has, according to cultural theorist Mark Fisher, been lost.
However, the sounds of the spectres of our past still haunts our timeless present.
While the aesthetic of art curation has stagnated for the past century, refusing to progress as culture shifts, the development of new technologies expands the horizons of curated experience. My current master’s research project explores how sound in art can challenge this aesthetic (the white cube) and inspire change in how we experience art. Sound challenges our curation aesthetics by inviting time back into our galleries and curated spaces.
Because sound is intrinsically and unignorably relational and because sound cannot exist without the dimension of time and the context of a surrounding architecture, it embodies relevant challenges to how we define, exhibit and experience artworks. The physical phenomena of sound is that of vibrations that pass through the air around is, bouncing off the walls and then echoes in our cochlea. This creates an intimate and relational dialogue between the surrounding space, the sound and the listener.
Derrida’s ‘Hauntology’ proposes an alternative model of time to the linear and constantly progressive one we assume. Instead, hauntology describes time as if crumpled and therefore layered. In which the past is a spectre that lives through the present and shapes the future of our culture. I believe hauntology has relevant comparison to Xenakis’ alternate model of sound, sharing with it an attitude against linearity. Xenakis proposes an understanding of sound as energy. Composer John Cage famously said, ‘there is no such thing as silence’, after visiting Harvard’s anechoic sound chamber. Where he expected to find a room completely devoid of sound, instead he heard the echoes of his nervous system and the sound of blood flowing through his veins. Therefore, wherever there is spectatorship there is sound, and the linear concept of pure sound does not consider sounds inherent relationality to an observer’s experience. Xenakis’ theory of sound as granular sees a ‘sound’ as a representation within which many ‘grains’ or acoustic sound quanta are experienced.
I propose, therefore, an investigation into experience itself as granular, especially into how a granular experience can evolve in time and be influenced by its spectators.
This granular experience is simply the interpretation of a multitude of gains of information. Information alone can be powerful, but it is in its presentation and composition that shapes the moment of our experience and draw out an emotive response that will inspire change.
Art has a very powerful ability to move, inspire and change us. I believe that an exploration of sound art, and therefore time and place, in curated experience that will not only encourage the evaporation of the aesthetic by which we consume and witness art but will also inspire activistic change with its relational and transformative power.
Environmental context:
We live in the geological epoch of the Anthropocene, the immense and significant impact of humanity on Earth’s ecosystems is becoming more and more irreversible. The recent emergence of environmental movements such as extinction rebellion represent a population of people who do not want humanity to be the next mass extinction event on Earth. Recently, however, in response to the G7 summit in Cornwall, the environmentalist group led a campaign called ‘sound the alarm’, with a goal and encouragement of onlookers to make as much noise as possible. Protestors used instruments, car horns, Rattles, marching bands etc. While it is certainly important to have voices heard on the side of environmental consideration, I feel it shows a lack of awareness for the effect of sound pollution on the ecosystems around us. According to the National Park Service in the United States, ‘noise pollution has an enormous environmental impact and does serious damage to wildlife.’ With experts saying that noise pollution interferes with animal breeding cycles and is hastening the extinction of some species. Luigi Russolo, author of The art of Noises (1913) writes that noise was born with the advent of machinery and there is certainly a stark contrast between the information rich soundscapes of nature and the industrial drones of man-made sites. Technology is certainly the future of humanity, but we must ensure that our development does not irreversibly damage the environment and wildlife around us. With new cutting-edge sound technologies, we will surely find new aesthetics that can transform our experience of sound and inspire action.
Provisional Research Question:
In what ways can an alternate model of experience inspire activistic change with contemporary technology systems?
Past experience:
As an artist I paint images of the invisible and give voice to the silent, revealing hidden connections and encouraging a reflection on our cultural climate.
I have always been passionate to make artwork that makes a difference, that steps into the unknown and uses new technologies or that campaigns for positive change in the world. In a project I named ‘Śōṣita, (2019)’ I used bleach on denim canvases to bring out images of sweatshops, protesting for awareness and humanitarian justice. In another project, ‘Taxis, (2020)’ I created stereoscopic paintings of injured animals as a critique of the use and encouragement of animal taxidermy at the Bournemouth Natural Science Society, these paintings could be observed in 3D via a ‘Google Cardboard’: affordable virtual reality headsets.
My previous work displays my experience in the field of sound and image’s relation to technology and virtual space. For my works ‘Cherub Playing a Lute, 2020, (2020)’ and ‘Intonarumori, (2020)’, I used Unreal Engine 4 to explore virtual spatial audio, the works explored the digitisation of sound and images in a virtual 3D space. They were also a part of a larger project: ‘Spectra, (2020’), which used artificial spectral synthesis to digitally bring out sounds from images and spectral editing software to create spectrographs from sounds. This conversation between sound and image through digital technology raised and addressed a flattening and homogenisation of our sense experience.
I explored using photogrammetry in ‘Compression Artefact, (2021)’ my final major project for my bachelor’s in fine art, importing the point cloud into a 3D modelling software and animating it over video footage. My ability to experiment with this tool was limited to the technology I could access from home, however. My final major project explored the fears of a digitised futures and its implications for the human condition, our sense experience and relationships with time, connection and nature.
Currently, I am studying a postgraduate degree; the ‘Masters of Research in the Arts’ (MRes Arts) at Arts University Bournemouth. Within my masters I am currently experimenting with constructing and implementing directional speaker systems, namely ultrasonic non-linear parabolic speakers. This practical research is to compliment and inform a 20,000-word research project. My research question is: ‘In what ways can sound art challenge the white cube aesthetic?’. This will explore how the white cube gallery format, in its conception and formulation, rejects aspects to works of art that I believe are important and integral. These aspects: relationality, context and time are all necessary predicates of sound-based artworks; therefore, I will discuss how our experience of art is impaired by a curation that isolates it from the world, using sound to argue the relational and immersive potential for art experience.
Methodology:
For this PhD I will investigate the relationship between Xenakis’ granular synthesis and photogrammetry, as they share in their philosophy that the world can be understood through grains of information. Either the acoustic corpuscles of sound that contribute to the energy of what we call sound, or the spatial pixels of information that constructs a point-cloud.
Depending on the findings of my master’s course I may choose to use parabolic speakers as acoustic devices that would limit the experience of noise to a local area and therefore limit sound pollution from the immersive experiences. I would also love to experiment using the IKO to create high-fidelity soundscapes.
Either of these speaker systems would also be set up to produce a projective experience of spatial sound alongside using photogrammetry to experiment with aesthetics of audio visualisations, specifically how sound can affect the environments around us. For example, A public area can be captured with photogrammetric technologies, then its geometry can be displaced by the synchronised rhythms of the soundscape.
This would also be explored with sound objects in a virtual game engine. Using sound objects to explore our relationship with digital experience and creating an interactive experience that takes advantage of our post-digital climate. Alternatively, I could explore using augmented reality software to further highlight the connection between digital technologies and noise to further observe its consequential effect on the world around us.
Sounds will be produced from granular synthesis engines, with samples taken from field recordings with the university’s Eigenmike. Samples may also be taken from the artificial spectral synthesiser I have used in previous projects to explore the relationship of digital images and sounds. The parameters of the granular synthesiser or modulation parameters could then be altered with input from a motion sensing device or interaction from spectators, influencing the sound experience and therefore influencing the sound-visualisation.
This Project proposes to:
1. Compose immersive experiences to educate and inform the public of the environmental issue of sound pollution. Communicating information produced from research.
2. Investigate the capabilities of cutting-edge immersive technologies’ and audio-visual aesthetics, and its potential for transforming sound curation
3. Discuss the relational potential of sound to bring about activistic change
4. Exploring the conversation between sound, image and technology and the way that sounds are situated in space.
For this project I will curate exhibitions of the soundscapes, in both public and private space, and will produce a written PhD exploring the extent of these concepts’ relationships.
Bibliography of sources already consulted/seen to be of relevance:
- Alifuoco A, 2017. Alive’ Performance: Toward an immersive activist philosophy, Performance Philosophy, Article. Available online from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317887122_Alive_Performance_Toward_an_Immersive_Activist_Philosophy
- Chattopadhyay B, 2014. Object-Disoriented Sound: Listening in the Post-Digital Condition, APRJA Journals, Journal, available online at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276895928_Object-Disoriented_Sound_Listening_in_the_Post-Digital_Condition
- Giannini T, Bowen J P, 2019. Art and Activism at Museums in a Post-digital World. International Electronic Visualisation in the Arts (EVA) conference, London, accessed January 1, 2021. Available online from:
- Iturbide M, 2014. Expansion of Sound Sculpture and Sound Installation in Art, UNAM, Article, available online from: https://www.artesonoro.net/artesonoroglobal/TheExpansiontOfSoundSculptureAndSound-2014.pdf
- Leitner B, 1978. Ton, Raum, Cantz, Book.
Holmboe R, 2020. The Institutional Situation of So-Called Sound Art, Seismograf, Peer reviewed Article. available online from: https://seismograf.org/node/19363
- Luna I, 2015. The Expanded Field of Sound and Image, Understanding Visual Music 2015 Symposium, Journal. available online from: https://www.academia.edu/41267067/The_Expanded_Field_of_Sound_and_Image
- Mollaghan A, 2015. The Rest is Silence’: Psychogeography, Soundscape and Nostalgia in Pat Collins' Silence, The New Soundtrack, Journal.
- Ouzounian G, 2021. Stereophonica: Sound and Space in Science, Technology, and the Arts, MIT Press, Book. Preview available online from: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Stereophonica/lCkVEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
- The Sound Studies Reader, Jonathan Sterne, 2012. Book, Published by Routledge, available online from: http://pzacad.pitzer.edu/~mma/teaching/MS114/readings/Sterne-SoundStudiesReader.pdf
- Schafer R, 1997. The Soundscape: Our sonic environment and the tuning of the world, Destiny Books, Accessed January 1, 2022. Available online from: https://monoskop.org/images/d/d4/Schafer_R_Murray_The_Soundscape_Our_Sonic_Environment_and_the_Tuning_of_the_World_1994.pdf
- Sterken S, 2001. Towards a Space-Time Art: Iannis Xenakis’ Polytopes. Perspectives of new music, article. Available online from:
Sources of Environmental Research
- Inderscience Online, 2021, website, collection of Journals, Available online from:
- Michael A, 2008. Global environmental change and health: impacts, inequalities, and the health sector,Journal. Available online from:
- Parris K, McCauley R, 2021. Noise Pollution and the Environment, Journal, Australian Academy of Science. Available online from:
- Sordello R, et al, 2019. Evidence of the environmental impact
of noise pollution on biodiversity: a systematic map protocol. Environmental Evidence Journal. Accessed January 1, 2022. Available online from:
PhD Personal Statement
While the application requirement form dictated that I needed a detailed written proposal of around 1500 words, the application process only required a personal statement of several hundred characters, by which applicants must convince as to whether their proposal is worth reading. Below is my personal statement:
For this PhD I will investigate the relationship between Xenakis’ granular synthesis and photogrammetry, as they share in their philosophy that the world can be understood through grains of information. Through acoustic corpuscles that contribute to the energy of what we call sound, or the spatial pixels of information that constructs a point-cloud. Information alone can be powerful, but it is in its presentation and composition that shapes the moment of our experience and draw out an emotive response that will inspire change. I propose an investigation into experience itself as granular, especially into how granular experience can evolve in time and be influenced by its spectators.
We live in the geological epoch of the Anthropocene, the immense and significant impact of humanity on Earth’s ecosystems is becoming increasingly irreversible.
My PhD will explore the devastating effect of noise pollution on the ecosystems around us, curating immersive experiences that not only educate and inform the public on this important environmental concern, but spaces which are curated as to not produce sound pollution themselves. These installations will be immersive with a focus on contemporary aesthetics of audio visualisation, theoretical groundwork, activistic impact and interactivity. My research proposal goes into great detail on how this might be accomplished, making the most of the fantastic and unique facilities of the University.
Technology is certainly the future of humanity, but we must ensure that our development does not irreversibly damage the environment and wildlife around us. With new cutting-edge sound technologies, we will surely find new aesthetics that can transform our experience of sound and inspire action.
As a fine art graduate and master’s student, my research and work explores the relationships between sound, image, time, space and digital technologies.
I have always been passionate to make artwork that makes a difference. In previous projects I created stereoscopic paintings to campaign against taxidermy; erected provoking sculptures near an oil rig site and used bleach on denim canvases to bring out images of sweatshops, protesting for awareness and humanitarian justice.
My explorations of sound use artificial spectral synthesis, digitally translating images into microtonal sounds. These sounds were then explored in Unreal Engine 4’s virtual spatial audio, interacting with the digitisation of sense experience in virtual 3D space.
‘Compression Artefact, (2021)’ my final major project, explored the fears of a digitised futures and its implications for the human condition: our sense experience and relationships with time, connection, privacy and nature. It used a wide range of technologies, such as photogrammetry, Datamoshing, Time displacement, EB synth, 3D modelling, etc.
Because of the intrinsic relationality of sound, it embodies significant and relevant challenges to how we define, exhibit and experience art. This is the argument that is at the centre of my current Master of Research in the Arts’ research project. Discussing how our experience of art is impaired by a curation that isolates it from the world, using sound to argue the relational and immersive potential for art experience. Alongside this I am experimenting with constructing and implementing parabolic speaker systems to investigate is potential application in facilitating sonic experiences. While it is the belief of some modern philosophers that we are living in a time after the future, I believe that through an engagement with sound experiences we can better realise ourselves as temporal beings with an autonomy to create positive change in the world for future generations.
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