Thesis title:
Moving Beyond Immersion: Developing a Critical Approach to Spatial Audio Composition
This research critically examines spatial audio composition within the context of contemporary capitalism. It probes the concept of immersion and the prevalence of immersive experiences in the sonic arts, examining the potential critical limitations that emerge through an ideology of escapism. The project challenges the influence of traditional acoustic ecology and its idealisation of “natural” sound, arguing that this perspective pathologizes noise and urbanity, and reinforces art-as-escape narratives embedded in commercial and artistic immersive media.
Through a process of field recording in environments where sound shapes behaviour, perception, and social relations, the research explores how sound conditions and reflects patterns of use, movement, and attention, and how these dynamics can be re-mobilized through composition. The research investigates the sonic structures that guide the experience of use, and how recorded sound, its transformation, and spatialisation can produce critical perceptions of reality, temporality, and space.
Through the development of experimental methods of sound processing and spatial speaker assemblage, embracing creative mis-use, the project proposes a critical compositional framework. This will inform participatory works, installations, and performances, fostering both engagement with spatial audio technologies and reflection on the social and ideological functions of sound.
Research Area
Publications
Other Research Interests
Affect, Audio Virology, Cybernetics, Media and Cultural Studies
Awards:
Selected Performances
Wavefield Synthesis Festival - Amare - The Hague [NL] - 31/05/25
TWH Presents - The White Hotel - Salford [UK] - 19/05/25
Rewire Festival - New Music Lab - The Hague [NL] - 06/04/25
Mantis Festival - Martin Harris Centre - Manchester [UK] - 26/10/24
Self - Avalon Cafe [London] - 30/10/24
Crawlspace - The Hague [NL] - 13/09/24
Memberships
Music, Technology and Innovation Research Group (MTIRG)
