The Choreography of Sound
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The Choreography of Sound
Artistic Research Project
Ramón González-Arroyo, Gerhard Eckel, Martin Rumori, and David Pirrò
"The Choreography of Sound (CoS) is a project about the spatial in music, addressing in particular the domain of electroacoustic music. In contrast to acoustic sound, with its properties causally deriving from its origin and in which space is embedded in its nature, synthetic sound has no inherent properties, spatial or otherwise, and can be composed as a formal construct, with temporal and spatial properties opened to the imagination and the skills of its constructor.
In our approach sound is conceived including a spatial dimension. The sonic object has spatial extension, ideally suggesting the perception of dwelling in space. This perception, however, is not a direct and easy matter with which one can count for granted, quite on the contrary, it is our conviction that this goal will only be achieved through the collaborative action of compositional, scientific and technological forces. We are searching for the emergence of a perception of materiality of synthetic sound matter: the illusion of a sound object with the corporality of a plastic object. A change of perspective with consequences not to be underestimated in the conception of the composition of music."
A Framework for the Choreography of Sound
Publication
Eckel, Gerhard and Rumori, Martin and Pirrò, David and González-Arroyo, Ramón
Proceedings of the 38th International Computer Music Conference, ICMC 2012
A framework developed in the context of the artistic research project The Choreography of Sound is presented. The project aims at furthering the practice of electroacoustic composition, especially with respect to the spatial in this genre. The general approach of the project is introduced as a basis for presenting the design of the framework. Its main components are described and the motivations for their design are explained. The framework comprises various tools to formulate spatial aspects of compositional ideas in heterogeneous ways (geometrically, as dynamic systems, and as objects composed from shared properties). Existing spatialisation techniques can be integrated in the framework and exposed to compositional control, such as to allow for unorthodox combinations of them as well as articulating them with other levels of composition. Visualisation and auralisation components allow for sensible work off-site in the otherwise very site-specific project. The CoS software framework is conceived as extensions to the SuperCollider audio programming environment.