Symposium Session 2

John D’Arcy – First Steps into Someone Else’s Ears: The initial activities of Do You Hear What I Hear? – Do You Hear What I Hear (DYHWIH) is an interdisciplinary project that aims to explore how diversity in auditory sensory experiences might be shared through technologically-assisted arts performances. The project incorporates participatory performance and augmented-reality audio in an investigation of aural empathy. The presentation will cover the project’s origins; share influential work by other artists and organisations; document the initial activities of DYHWIH; consider the ethics of ‘trying on someone else’s ears’; and forecast some potential future outcomes of the project.

Georgios Varoutsos – Peace Wall Belfast – In West Belfast lays the Peace Wall Belfast, a manifestation of multifaced messages on political, religious, and communal ideals represented by physical properties of cement, gates, and artwork. There have been discussions on initiatives to take down the walls, however, this remains a fragile state. When thinking about the connectivity of the surrounding spaces and communities, the placing of the Peace Wall(s) blocks any opportunity of cross-communication and produces disorienting effects. However, through alternative artistic approaches focusing on sound, there can be innovative capabilities of sharing these stories and spaces with spatial audio techniques.

Julian Weaver – Future Audition: listening to promises of ‘unlimited power for the indefinite future’ – Future Audition presents a sonic investigation of Nuclear Fusion, its ongoing quest to become the power source of the future, and its wider implications in terms of environment and energy landscapes. ‘Always 30 years away’, as the joke goes, Fusion energy is “a dream that haunts the future” [Pinkus, 2016]. Future Audition puts fusion energy ‘in place’, re-entangling its mission to ‘create a sun on earth’ with environmental discourses around landscape and power, global resourcing and strong sustainability. Drawing on the project’s field-recordings, audifications of reactor data, and captured robotic and material science processes, Future Audition will transmit some aspects of these current and future entanglements.

Marcel Sagesser aka Marcel Zaes – Composing Time: The Sonic Materiality of Grids, Deviations and Envelopes – Digital audio workstations teach us to detach abstract temporal tools from the audio clips that we are composing with: we align clips on a temporal grid, apply time-based effects, algorithmically seek for transients, apply audio quantization, envelopes, etc. But what if we consider these tools themselves as material to work with? In this lecture-demonstration, Marcel presents a series of current studies where he uses the temporal algorithms and the audible artifacts thereof as sound material to compose with. Listening to these studies will encourage us to think about a potential “sonic materiality” of time.

Sylvia Hinz – Recorder: in-between times – We are living in-between times, and as classical musicians also in-between genres. contemporary music is experimental, interdisciplinary, and open for elements from both traditional notation and graphical notation. with this programme , I aim to show similarities and differences, massive sounds and fragile trembling of the air.
1. Graphic score I & II (2020) WP for tenor recorder + tape – Elsa M’Bala (*1988, CM), tape: Sylvia Hinz 7′
2. Lost in a dystopian story (2021)* WP for alto recorder + tape – Guadalupe Perales (*1992, MX) 8′
* written for Sylvia Hinz