Category: Introduction to Sound Arts

While quite famous as a physicist for his research in electrodynamics and energy conservation , fewer of us are aware of his work in the psychology of sound and visual perception. He is credited as one of the first to challenge the way we understand pitch perception through experiments and scientific observation and laid the… Continue reading Hermann von Helmholtz

Japanese sound and visual artist currently working in Paris, France. His work employs data visualisation and pure sine sounds often at the limit of human hearing. datamatics (2006) is an art project that explores the potential to perceive the invisible multi-substance of data that permeates our world. It is a series of experiments in various… Continue reading Ryoji Ikeda

An artist based in London, Rebecca Lennon works across media including video, text, performance, sound and music to think about and play with the non-linear shapes and rhythms of the voice, memory and the speaking body. [1] Divergent poetry, I think. Do you know what you’re trying to say before saying it? How do you… Continue reading I, I, I

Three hours ago I declared my assignment piece done and ready. The effect I soughed was still not there. But my ears were tired. Enough. Two hours ago I went through my field recordings looking to complete the sound report. So many beautiful sounds I lost sight of in trying to build something bigger and… Continue reading Exposition

One thought that stayed with me recently is the information input/output ratio for most people nowadays. How in this day and age we are so busy taking in information from all directions and don’t always get a chance to also put something out in the world. So a main area of interest for me has… Continue reading Noise of My Own Listening

“Anxiety over what people think of what you’re making hinders your creative process.” Richard Phoenix over the beauty of witnessing disabled people enjoying music, making music, free of fear, free of angst. I saw it, and I wondered. When did music become such a tool of the ego? Why do we care so much for… Continue reading Ego

The Shepard–Risset tone: tone that seems to continually ascend or descend in pitch, yet which ultimately gets no higher or lower McGurk effect: the visual information a person gets from seeing a person speak changes the way they hear the sound Deutsch’s scale illusion: two series of unconnected notes appear to combine into a single recognisable… Continue reading Auditory Illusions

“Yet how strange a thing is the beauty of music! The brief beauty that the player brings into being transforms a given period of time into pure continuance; it is certain never to be repeated; like the existence of dayflies and other such short-lived creatures, beauty is a perfect abstraction and creation of life itself.… Continue reading Dayflies

Founded through the collaboration of Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata, Butoh came as a protest against both the postwar Westernization and Japanese traditions like Noh theatre. It sought to find a more earthbound form of dance that would suit the Japanese body and its natural movements. The themes were often taboo, body paint was worn.… Continue reading Butoh

First year. First week. Deep listening. Pauline Oliveros. Oh? A woman? Second week. Soundwalk. Hildegard Westerkamp. Interesting. Third week. Toop and Parkinson: Unfinished Business: A Converstaion on Sound Art in the United Kingdom. Daphne Oram, Madeau Stewart, Annea Lockwood, Annabele Nicolson. What’s happening? Forth week: Ikeshiro and Tanaka: Sound in Japan, Silence, Noise, Material, and… Continue reading She, her. How?