SARC Symposium 2024 Programme

11:00 - 12:00: SARC update

Pedro Rebelo and Craig Jackson: SARC Building and Equipment. Updates on SARC building refurbishment and new equipment from the Higher Educatoon Research Capital Fund (DfE).

Frank Delaney: Info Talk and Demo of footage on new Research Camera Equipment. I propose a short talk that introduces the new research camera equipment (Burano, Phantom, Drones, FX3) and the accompanying lens kits. I will talk through the equipment, what it can do, outline the various permutations and possible setups of each camera and lemns combination and the various 'kit' arrangements possible and discuss the various situations each permutation/set up would be suitable for. I will also show some example footage from the Burano, the FX3 and Phantom.

12:00 - 13:00: Lightning talks

John D'Arcy: Pathways. This presentation shares the recent work of John D'Arcy and Paula Guzzanti in dance-media collaboration 'Pathways'. Since 2021, D'Arcy and Guzzanti have explored urban redevelopment through somatic movement and digital media practices, initially focusing on the Malta's large-scale highway infrastructure, the Marsa Junction, and in 2024 moving to a new site of focus, a running track in the Msida area of Malta. The sensorial stimuli of these sites are explored through somatic movement practices and a variety of media (video, 360 video, 3D scanning).

Hanna Slattne: Adventures in Metaplasticity. This presentation traces the unexpected trajectory of my practice-based PhD research into sonic enriched environments for people with Parkinson's disease. While the practical portfolio was completed early, the most significant insights emerged during the final year of analysis and thesis writing. By revisiting the PhD portfolio and practice examples through the lens of Damasio's "ownership of imagery" and enactive theories of metaplasticity, I discovered crucial aspects of how audiences co-create meaning through their sensory bodies. This challenged conventional approaches to immersive experience design by moving beyond present- tense focus to build in action constitutive elements that engage with audiences' anticipation and pre-emption. I am now evolving my framework of a dramaturgy of metaplasticity, applying tools developed during the PhD to compose for the body's multiple sense-making systems while exploring visual elements, geographical narratives, and time.

Cameron Clarke, Hello: Ephemeral messages from an old phone box. This short talk is an overview of my recent project 'Hello' a micro sound installation placed in an old phone box on Sunnyside Street. The project consisted of a repurposed old office phone that could record and play back one ten second message. Each time a person recorded a new message the last one was deleted for ever. The project is part of my research portfolio looking at provoking curiosity in the urban landscape and how artists can re-use defunct state infrastructure, and on a micro scale regenerate space.

Agnieszka Olek: Cyborg Ensemble. In search for a balanced musical 'Cyborgization'- Aga is incorporating acoustic instruments and generative tools into an artistic practice within the experimental popular music context. Through forming an 'ensemble' consisting of violin, voice, electronics, generative layers and the MRP piano, she is searching for new ways of expression, contemplating the idea of progress with boundaries, re-using already created generative tools and the space for the AI in an artistic practice from a feminist perspective.

Simon Waters: Hope is What Allows us to Imagine A Different Kind of Future. Simon Waters outlines a new speculative project, tentatively entitled ‘Hope is what allows us to imagine a different kind of future’. It embraces mess, and the improvisational proclivities of SARC's staff and research students, in an effort to take seriouslty the human capacity for unplanned conduct, and argues for the value of acknowledging and understanding the role of such conduct (situated action) as productive of crucial knowledge in an unpredictable world.

Chris Corrigan: Accelerating Acquisition of Critical Listening Skills Using CBL. This presentation will provide an overview of work that commenced in 2014 introducing computer based assessment within Stage 1, 2 and 3 modules to accelerate the acquisition of critical listening skills for student audio engineers.

Robert Coleman: Ecological Soundwalks: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Art, Science, and Environmental Activism. This presentation explores the development of my ecological soundwalks as an interdisciplinary form of eco-activism that balances scientific information with artistic expression. Rooted in the emerging practice of ecological sound art, my soundwalks incorporate deep ecology philosophy to foster embodied connections to biodiversity and challenge anthropocentric views. Live narration, listening exercises, geolocated audio, ecoacoustic data integration and performance provides participants with an interdisciplinary framework to engage with present and local ecological narratives related to the climate and biodiversity crisis. An example is the use of projected future soundscapes of the developing Glas-na-Bradan Wood in the Belfast Hills, highlighting the benefits of tree-planting and the change this brings to ecosystems. Philosopher Timothy Morton states that “thinking and art and political practice should simply relate directly to nonhuman” and so listening to this nonhuman life and communicating its voice has become a focal theme of the Ecological Soundwalk.

Jia-Rey Chang: A.I. (AI art) and I.A. (Interactive Art). Jia-Rey Chang will share 2 of his works including "Loki Test" and "Seaing Peace". The "Loki Test" challenges the conventional obedience of artificial intelligence, embracing an ironic approach where the chatbot, named after the god of mischief, aims to play jokes rather than please users. "Seaing Peace" is an immersive VR experience guiding you toward inner calm by offering no flashy interactions, only the gentle passage of time, soft waves, shifting daylight, and the steady presence of stars, sun, and moon, inviting a quiet dialogue with yourself and a deep reconnection to inner peace.

Zexuan Qiao: Reconstruction of historical Border pipes. Historical records reveal a unique type of bagpipe known as the Border pipes, which occupied a distinct place among British bagpipes in both geographical range and musical repertoire. With the author’s expertise as both a player and a bagpipe maker, this study emphasises the hands-on crac of instrument making as much as historical analysis. The talk will explore the history of Border pipes and delve into their reconstruction, which combines traditional cracsmanship with advanced technology, including CT scans and additive manufacturing.

Michael Speers: Aeolian Membranes - exploring and building complex sonic ecosystems with drums, synthesis and air. Aeolian Membranes’ describes a system using drums of which the heads (membranes) are activated by air. ‘Aeolian’ defines something that is relating to or arising from energy produced by wind. In this case, the drumheads are set into motion by a source of compressed air that runs through tubes into convex couplers pressed against the skins. This pneumatic oscillation produces a drone that resonates through the body of the drum and the chamber, into a space. I'm exploring how this system can be developed into a more autonomous, self-organising one using spectral analysis and digital synthesis.

Yo Tomita, "AI-Kobayashi": building a new AI-driven system for Bach source studies for the future. This is an ongoing joint project jointly conducted with Masahiro Niitsuma (Keio University, Tokyo) and Ichiro Fujinaga (McGill University) to recreate an AI system to generate an updated chronology of Bach’s works based on the methodologies used by Yoshitake Kobayashi in his pioneering work of 1988. It involves in the automatic extraction of musical symbols from music manuscripts, and analyses how the symbols changed their shapes gradually during the course of writer’s life, while also consulting with the knowledge gained from the related databases of watermarks of papers and other source-related information such as other scribes involved in the production of manuscripts.

13:00 - 14:00: Lunch and demos

Maarten van Walstijn: Virtual-Acoustic Instruments. In this session the audience is invited to enactively explore various aspects and current instantiations of virtual-acoustic instruments under development at SARC:

• real-time slide-string instrument audio plugin (Abhiram Bhanuprakash)

• slide pose estimation for real-time control (Abhiram Bhanuprakash)

• monochord with sensors for real-time bowing force and bowing force estimation (Eoghan Ó Néill)

• off-line state-of-the art bow-string synthesis sound examples (Maarten van Walstijn)

• virtual-acoustic drum (early version of Vodhrán, Maarten van Walstijn)

Helena Hamilton: On Wanting (site III). On Wanting (Site III) employs computer game technology to construct an interactive art experience. This is the third edition of an evolving audio-visual installation remediated across three distinct sites. The initial edition was craced for the home, designed to be experienced on personal devices. The second edition recontextualised the work as a concert piece. In this third edition, the project returns to the personal domain, yet it is reimagined through the framework of a computer game. Within this digital environment, the work introduces a new form of interaction, inviting users to actively engage and navigate the sonic and visual landscape. Rather than following a goal-oriented gameplay model, I have utilized gaming techniques to foster exploration within this digital site. Each remediation incorporates intentional alterations specific to its environment, with this third transformation representing the most significant shic in the work’s conceptual and experiential design.

Jia-Rey Chang: Loki Test. The "Loki Test" challenges the conven=onal obedience of artificial intelligence, embracing an ironic approach where the chatbot, named acer the god of mischief, aims to play jokes rather than please users. It acts as a contrary mirror, responding more sharply to arrogant users and encouraging those lacking confidence. This unconventional experiment prompts users to question the trustworthiness of AI-generated information, challenging biases and emphasizing the need for critical thinking in the face of technology. Unlike obedient AI assistants, Loki encourages users to think twice before trusting AI.

SARC Mobile: The new SARC Mobile! - Mobile Field Recording and Streaming , a bespoke field work vehicle for specialised multichannel audio visual recording and broadcasts.

14:00 - 14:20: Performances

Yecid Ortega, Sound Braiding: A duo-ethnographic approach for DIY music. This paper explores the underrepresented realm of extreme music through the lens of duoethnography, focusing on the experiences of two noise music artists from different cultural backgrounds. The authors investigate do it yourself (DIY) studies and its connection to noise music, emphasizing the rejection of mainstream conventions and the embrace of self-reliance and artistic autonomy. Through their collaborative approach, the authors unpack the process of creating a noise album as a cultural artifact reflecting their lived experiences. They introduce the concept of "Sound Braiding" as an artistic creativity in sound creation, emphasizing the interconnected narratives and collaborative synergies that underpin the DIY music scene. The proposed model of Sound Braiding offers insights for DIY Noisicians and suggests potential applications in diverse sonic endeavours. This paper provides a unique perspective for qualitative research and the role of lived experiences in DIY spaces as tools for cultural co-production within the context of extreme and experimental music.

Yecid Ortega, Revolucion 69. In this short loopscape performance, I utilize several clips/loops extracted from field recordings from my sound walking methodology project and process them through a linear wave sampling machine in real time to aesthetically signify the changes, transformations and revolutions of human activity of the everyday life. I borrow from Lefebvre's (2013) Rhythmanalysis to stresses the presence and interconnections of humans and non-humans within the dive[city] as an interplay of a/temporal characters. This performance seeks to engage the audience in how everyday life is shaped by various rhythms, which reflect and reinforce social dynamics as an experience of interlocking, complex, dynamic and every-evolving systems. In a sense, I hope the set creates an awareness of the sounds of the city and how these challenge or promote how different city rhythms and social interactions reflect or reinforce social hierarchies and power dynamics.

Dave Robb: The Post-Industrial Songs of Gerhard Gundermann. As part of my AHRC Research Development and Engagement award I made a short documentary film about the East German coal miner and political singer Gerhard Gundermann (1955-98). I also translated and recorded ten of Gundermann’s songs dealing with subjects such as the environment, migration and the postindustrial decline of the region he lived and worked in. In my film I describe their significance and continuing relevance in the present day. I will also play a video of a performance of one of these translated songs, ‘No Time Left’.

14:20 - 15:20: SARC x20

Pedro Rebelo and Frank Delaney: SARC x 20 Screening and Q&A. The SARC x 20 experience is composed of sounds and images from archive of creative work by SARC researchers and PhD alumni between 2004 and 2024 and makes use of the Sonic Lab’s unique immersive capabilities. The result is a five screen experimental documentary with spatial audio which expands narrative and chronologies across space. An interplay between the layout of the Sonic Lab itself and over 300 archived collections, the work creatively interrogates the archive using interventionist approaches to media representation and at times using processes akin to those used by the archived works themselves. Ocen questioning conventional audio-visual relationship, SARC x 20 brings out histories, performance, trends, sounds and images which are re-mediated in this unique format which allows for the expression of audio- visual gesture in an immersive context. Come prepared to turn your head and open your ears! SARC x 20 was created by Rebelo and Delaney to celebrate twenty years since the inauguration of the SARC building by Karlheinz Stockhausen. Reflecting research projects, public engagement activities, participatory projects, performance, composi=on, design and scholarship, this is a deep dive into the weird and wonderful ‘SARCness’ that seems to envelope those passing through as students as staff. The authors are grateful for the participation of HIVE Choir and the work is dedicated to the SARC community. Screening will be followed by a Q&A session with Rebelo, Delaney joined by Georgios Varoutsos (SARC Archive).

15:20-15:40pm: Panel

Franziska Schroeder: Performance without Barriers - A family tree. Performance without Barriers is a research partnership between QUB AEL and Drake Music NI exploring the ecosystem of accessible music technology to remove access barriers to musicking ocen experienced by disabled musicians. Our research team, past and present, branches out in a multi-disciplinary approach to enablement with a critical eye on emerging technology, accessibility, inclusive research methods and diverse perspectives. Our research family tree presentation will detail a history of inclusive and accessible music research by researchers past and present who will provide a context for the contemporary research pool that is the make up of "Performance without Barriers”. Presenting will be Franziska Schroeder, Alex Lucas, Leo Kuzmenko, Damian Mills and Gráinne Meyer.

15:40 - 16:00: Performances

Lara Weaver: Singing Sands of the Empty Quarter. This short listening session shares recordings from my PhD fieldwork investigating the ‘singing’ sand dunes of the Empty Quarter desert in the Arabian Peninsula. Otherwise known as ‘booming’ dunes, or ‘squawking sand’ in Arabic, the phenomenon occurs when very hot sand avalanches down the slip face of giant sand dunes, causing a deep, resonant sound. Recordings of the singing dunes are heard within context of the desert sound worlds of the Empty Quarter: wind through the sands, birdsong from small oases, camels and goats in remote camel farms, and the sounds of locals gathering for food, tea, and conversation.

Adam Denton: In Fleeting Coherence. I would like to offer a brief reading (with playback sonic accompaniment) from my recently submitted PhD thesis In Fleeting Coherence: Performing These Poetics in the Conurbational Trans-World

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