The domain of this thesis is electroacoustic computer-based music and sound art. It investigates a facet of composition which is often neglected or ill-defined: the process of composing itself and its embedding in time. Previous research mostly focused on instrumental composition or, when electronic music was included, the computer was treated as a tool which would eventually be subtracted from the equation. The aim was either to explain a resultant piece of music by reconstructing the intention of the composer, or to explain human creativity by building a model of the mind. Our aim instead is to understand composition as an irreducible unfolding of material traces which takes place in its own temporality. This understanding is formalised as a software framework that traces creation time as a version graph of transactions. The instantiation and manipulation of any musical structure implemented within this framework is thereby automatically stored in a database. Not only can it be queried ex post by an external researcher—providing a new quality for the empirical analysis of the activity of composing—but it is an integral part of the composition environment. Therefore it can recursively become a source for the ongoing composition and introduce new ways of aesthetic expression. The framework aims to unify creation and performance time, fixed and generative composition, human and algorithmic “writing”, a writing that includes indeterminate elements which condense as concurrent vertices in the version graph. The second major contribution is a critical epistemological discourse on the question of ob- servability and the function of observation. Our goal is to explore a new direction of artistic research which is characterised by a mixed methodology of theoretical writing, technological development and artistic practice. The form of the thesis is an exercise in becoming process-like itself, wherein the epistemic thing is generated by translating the gaps between these three levels. This is my idea of the new aesthetics: That through the operation of a re-entry one may establish a sort of process “form”, yielding works which go beyond a categorical either “sound-in-itself” or “conceptualism”. Exemplary processes are revealed by deconstructing a series of existing pieces, as well as through the successful application of the new framework in the creation of new pieces.

Through its portfolio of practical case studies and its engagement with critical thinking from a range of disciplines, the PhD investigates the following key question: what are the technical, aesthetic and conceptual impacts of using binaural technology to create a soundscape? ‘Using binaural technology’ implies users and users are essentially at the heart of this impact because users mediate the technical and aesthetic aspects of binaural technology and also inherently shape the theoretical ideology of this technology. By analysing users’ interactions with binaural technology from a social constructivist perspective, this thesis gains rich insights into the impact of using binaural technology when creating soundscapes. Chapter One explores sound artists’ and field recordists’ work that use binaural technology for the shared purpose of documenting urban soundwalks. The first case study “Audio Postcards” is also informed by questions drawn from acoustic ecology, socio-political theories on the practices of everyday life and the challenges that arise in finding, recording and preserving ‘soundmarks’. Chapter Two outlines practitioners’ applications of binaural technology to create an intimate connection to an art piece such as theatre director David Rosenberg’s productions. Peter Salvatore Petralia’s concept of headspace is applied to the chapter’s case study: “From Austria To America” to further understand binaural technology’s psychoacoustic effects. Chapter Three studies the impact of social groups who use binaural technology to record classical music performances. Traditional stereo and binaural classical music recording conventions are shaped in a new direction in two case studies: “Point of Audition” and “From Page to Stage”. Questions of ‘fidelity’ also arise from this creative practice. The outcomes of this reflective binaural practice unearth deep layers of understanding. This thesis discovers the impact of binaural technology moves beyond the effect it has on a listener to realise this recording practice also impacts a recordist’s decisions in the field and a sound artist’s creative choices when crafting soundscapes. The beneficial impact of binaural technology including its inconspicuous nature, the ability to imprint an artist’s subjective signature on recordings and its lifelike immersive qualities in playback are revealed through practice and reflection. Representing the real, the role of artist and point of audition are also themes explored throughout each chapter. Ultimately, insights gained are woven together as a means of constructing an original theoretical framework for an under-theorised subject: understanding how social user groups shape the impact of using binaural technology when creating soundscapes.

The thesis explores how painting is affected by its sonic environment. The research stems from an artistic response to noise in the environment and how this can be explored through artistic practice. The boundaries of art have and continue to be challenged as visual art has embraced an increasing range of approaches. This research explores the visual experience of viewing a painting alongside the all-encompassing time based nature of a sonic experience and readdresses the way painting operates within its own sound environment. It asks how these different elements can affect the reading of one another and in particular focuses on installations in extreme acoustic spaces, such as anechoic and reverberation chambers. It investigates how introducing sound to the painting arena can affect the reading and also transform the parameters of the painting. The research is practice-based and takes the form of a series of exhibitions, latterly in the form of site-specific installations, which have been evaluated, interpreted and responded to. This has led to a fundamental investigation, both practical and theoretical, into the way that sound and vision work together and how they relate within the context of art. Through the research the format of the painting developed in tandem with the temporal and audio considerations, resulting in all-encompassing installations bringing together panoramic paintings and 3D soundscapes.

In this thesis I argue that the relationship between the increasing ubiquity of digital audio technologies and the transformation of aesthetic hierarchies in electroacoustic and sound art traditions is not deterministic, but negotiated by producers and policy-makers in specific historical and cultural contexts. Interviews, observations, and historical data were gathered during sixteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Canadian city of Montreal between 2011 and 2012. Research was conducted and analysed in collaboration with a transnational group of researchers on a programme of comparative research that tracked global changes to music and musical practice associated with digital technologies. The introduction presents Montreal as a rich ecology in which to track struggles for aesthetic authority, detailing its history as a key site of electroacoustic and sound art production, and its local positioning as a politically strategic 'hub' for the Canadian culture industry. Core chapters examine the specific role of digital mediation in the negotiation of electroacoustic and sound art aesthetics from multiple interlocking perspectives: the recursive relationship between technological affordances and theories of mediation; the mobilisation of digital technologies in the delineation of cultural, professional and generational territories; the political contestation of digital literacies and pedagogies; the articulation of the digital's opposition with analogue in the construction of instruments and recording formats; and the effects of the digital on the dynamics of genre and genre hierarchies. The concluding chapter offers a critique of the notion that digital mediation has shifted the balance between the normative and the generative dimensions of genrefication in the scenes in question, and closes by suggesting how a better understanding of this shift at an empirical level can inform an ongoing rethinking of the interaction between technology and aesthetics among scholars, policy makers, and musicians.

In today’s lexicon a ‘Daily Constitutional’ usually refers to a daily walk. But in actuality, a ‘Daily Constitutional’ is something that one does on a daily basis that is beneficial to one’s constitution or healthful(1); and one’s constitution being the aggregate of a person’s physical and psychological characteristics(2). With this definition, the daily constitutional refers to any daily activity that improves a person’s physical or mental health. At various stages in my life I may have understood my constitutional to be any number of things and it was not until I came into my own did I truly discover my Daily Constitutional, the creative process. In the following thesis I will be covering my thoughts and opinions on the creative process as well as my role of Artist in a larger art community. The thesis consists of six chapters, each being a letter I wrote for Daily Constitutional, A Publication for the Artist’s Voice as the Editor-in-Chief. I created the Daily Constitutional in 2005 in order to provide my contemporary colleagues with an opportunity to once again have a voice in the art world. The publication is entirely submission based with an international open call. Each semi-annual issue is created out of the submissions received and composed by a rotating panel of six artists and has been ongoing throughout my tenure at Virginia Commonwealth University. The mission of the publication is to provide an outlet and forum for the individual Artist’s voice, rather than the cacophony that is the art world at large (galleries, critics, curators, museums, patrons and finally the artists themselves). To provide a place to express, exchange and discuss, without interpretation, the artist’s opinions, ideas and discoveries within one’s practice. This publication can only be made possible, through a collaboration of individual Artists.(3) This document was created with Adobe InDesign CS2. 1. “constitutional.” Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 03 May. 2009. . 2. “constitution.” Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 03 May. 2009. . 3. “Mission Statement,” Daily Constitutional, A Publication for the Artist’s Voice, 2005-09, http://www.dailyconstitutional.org/mission_statement.html

Esta pesquisa tem o objetivo de realizar um mapeamento de questões presentes em um conjunto de obras que, a partir de meados da década de 1970, vêm se agrupando sob o termo - arte sonora. Para tanto, este trabalho parte de uma aproximação com o repertório, na medida em que realiza um levantamento e análise, por meio de bibliografia, discografia, catálogos de obras e outras fontes, abordando o trabalho de vários artistas que se destacam nesse âmbito, bem como apontando diversas questões extraídas desse primeiro passo. A partir daí, constatou-se que esse repertório é bastante amplo e divergente, e que a delimitação desse campo pode ser apenas aproximada. Porém, para a realização de um mapeamento do ideário da arte sonora, foi estabelecido um levantamento e análise de obras de artistas que, de uma forma ou outra, influenciaram esse processo. Três referências fundamentais são levantadas e abordadas: a Música Eletroacústica, a Installation Art e a Performance Art. Posteriormente a pesquisa concentrou-se no que, no decorrer da dissertação, chamamos de arte sonora e a partir daí, extraiu-se cinco aspectos considerados fundamentais para a análise e compreensão desse repertório. São eles: Sonoridade, Tecnologia, Interação, Espaço e Tempo. / The main purpose of this research is to map the central aspects that can be observed in a representative repertoire of art works that since the 70\' is been labeled Sound Art. This work starts from the research and analysis of this repertoire based on the available bibliography, audiography, exhibitions\' catalogues and other sources. A representative number of artists are investigated and their work analyzed. From this research it becomes evident that this repertoire is extremely large ample and divergent, and that the delimitation of this field is a difficult task. However, for the accomplishment of a mapping of the main concepts that area related to Sound Art, we proceeded the analysis of a number of works. Three basic references are investigated: Electroacoustic Music; Installation Art and Performance. Afterward the research investigated five aspects that we consider to be of fundamental importance to the comprehension of this repertoire: Sound, Technology, Interaction, Space and Time

Este trabalho tem como objetivo principal posicionar o conceito de desenho de escuta. Para tal, articula-se uma composição teórica situada na convergência entre estudos do som, etnografia de mídias, pesquisa em criação artística, e filosofias críticas da representação. Neste início de século XXI, a escuta é empregada explicitamente como um bem material e imaterial distribuído entre mercantilização de audiências, pesquisa em arte e debate ético. Para situar a noção de desenho de escuta como um operador conceitual que responde a este contexto, o trabalho divide-se em duas grandes partes: a primeira parte posiciona o problema geral da tese mediante a descrição de dispositivos de poder que formam políticas majoritárias da auralidade; a segunda parte desdobra o conceito de desenho de escuta como um operador e um designador de variações do agenciamento aural. Na primeira parte, descreve-se uma variedade de situações materiais de consumo de áudio no contexto do complexo militar-entretenimento, particularmente no ambiente de consumo fonográfico online. Neste contexto, analisa-se um dispositivo paradigmático de racionalização instrumental da escuta, e apresenta-se a necessidade teórica de se pensar uma áudio virologia. Na segunda parte, aprecia-se uma transformação epistêmica em curso no âmbito da pesquisa em música no Brasil; e descreve-se a noção de otografia, núcleo conceitual da produção artística que desenvolvi ao longo desta pesquisa de doutorado. A metodologia analítica permite constatar, na primeira parte, a transição de um regime de regulação moral da escuta musical baseado na disciplina para um regime baseado no controle; Na segunda parte, o assunto principal é uma diversidade de pesquisas artísticas que ativam o particular e o local como dimensões a serem recontextualizadas no âmbito da pesquisa em arte. O pressuposto básico desta tese é o de que a escuta é uma prática a ser pensada primordialmente em termos de agenciamento de desejo. Tal pressuposto conduz o trabalho a eleger a esquizoanálise como o seu principal aliado teórico, o que lhe permite esquivar-se de uma série de binarismos usualmente pressupostos pela discursividade acadêmica, tais como natureza e cultura, local e global, musical e extramusical. O desenho de escuta é necessariamente uma prática e um conceito: uma prática de consolidação de territórios existenciais específicos em função dos meios materiais agenciados; e um operador de linguagem, mediante o qual se pode elaborar um saber enunciado a partir do corpo, de ações particularmente significativas, de devires. / This thesis aims to position the concept of listening design. For this, it articulates a theoretical composition situated in the convergence between sound studies, media ethnography, practice-based research, and philosophies critical to representation. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, listening is explicitly used as a material and immaterial good distributed among audience commoditification, art and ethical debate. In order to situate the notion of listening design as a conceptual operator responding to this context, this work is divided into two main parts: the first part poses the general problem of the thesis by describing a set of power apparatuses that form majoritary policies of aurality; the second part unfolds the concept of listening design as both an operator and designator for practices transforming aural assemblages. In the first part, I describe a variety of material situations of audio consumption in the context of the military-entertainment complex, mainly the environment of online audio consumption. In this context, I analyze a paradigmatic apparatus for instrumental rationalization of the listening activity, and I assess the theoretical need to think in terms of an audio virology. In the second part, I discuss an ongoing epistemic transformation in the field of music research in Brazil; followed by a description of notion of otography, which is the conceptual nucleus of the artistic production that I developed throughout this doctoral research. The analytical methodology carried out here allows us to verify, in the first part, the transition from an economic-political regime of musical listening based on the discipline to a regime of regulation based on control; In the second part, the focus is on instances of artistic research that activates the particular and the local as dimensions to be recontextualized in the scope of academic art research. The core of this thesis is based on the argument that listening is a practice to be thought primarily in terms of assemblage of desire. This presupposition leads the work to take schizoanalysis as its main theoretical ally, which allows it to dodge a series of binarisms usually presupposed by academic discursiveness, such as nature and culture, local and global, musical and extramusical. Listening design is necessarily a practice and a concept: a practice of consolidation of specific existential territories in function of assembled material media; and a language operator through which one can elaborate a particular knowledge enunciated from the body, from particularly meaningful actions, from becomings.

“An Omnivorous Ear - The Creative Practice of Field Recording” offers new insights into the history of recording outside of the studio in North America, challenging the various working definitions of field recording in music studies, anthropology, and communications. I examine recording methodologies through the late 19th and 20th centuries as a documentary technique, a tool for composition, and an art object in the United States of America and Canada from the late 19th century to the present day. Within this geographical region, I focus on the invention of acoustic recording, the proliferation of the technology amongst the public, folkloric recording supported by governmental and academic institutions, as well a experimental artistic practices. Throughout the dissertation, I argue that ‘the field’ is a social construction mediated by the recordist and recorder. Chapter 2 focuses on how cultures translate collective and phenomenological experiences into histories through sound media. These include orality, writing, the inscription of sound waves onto media, acoustic recording, and radio as forms of sound media that each embodies distinct forms of social and political knowledge. Chapter 3 details the development of recording machines and their effect on listening practices. Chapter 4 locates practitioners of phonography within the development of portable recording equipment on the one hand and the ‘hi-fi’ cultural movement in North America on the other. Practitioners included folklorists Alan Lomax from the Library of Congress, Moses Asch of Folkways Records, and Harry Smith, creator of the Anthology of American Folk Music; Stefan Kudelski, creator of the NAGRA recorder; and media maker Tony Schwartz, among the first to create the sound documentary by editing field recordings. Chapter 5 explores the relationship between sound, music and the environment within the paradigm of the soundscape as theorized by the World Soundscape Project (WSP). I critique the research and compositional practices developed by WSP members, and the influence it has on ecomusicology and sound art. Chapter 6 outlines sonic ethnography, a methodology that borrows from the best practices of many of the individuals mentioned throughout the dissertation, and employs new compositional techniques to condense and manipulate social, political and historical narratives through sonic works. The dissertation concludes by arguing that field recording, can be used to critique aesthetic and cultural dilemmas of representation.

Este trabalho tem como objetivo principal posicionar o conceito de desenho de escuta. Para tal, articula-se uma composição teórica situada na convergência entre estudos do som, etnografia de mídias, pesquisa em criação artística, e filosofias críticas da representação. Neste início de século XXI, a escuta é empregada explicitamente como um bem material e imaterial distribuído entre mercantilização de audiências, pesquisa em arte e debate ético. Para situar a noção de desenho de escuta como um operador conceitual que responde a este contexto, o trabalho divide-se em duas grandes partes: a primeira parte posiciona o problema geral da tese mediante a descrição de dispositivos de poder que formam políticas majoritárias da auralidade; a segunda parte desdobra o conceito de desenho de escuta como um operador e um designador de variações do agenciamento aural. Na primeira parte, descreve-se uma variedade de situações materiais de consumo de áudio no contexto do complexo militar-entretenimento, particularmente no ambiente de consumo fonográfico online. Neste contexto, analisa-se um dispositivo paradigmático de racionalização instrumental da escuta, e apresenta-se a necessidade teórica de se pensar uma áudio virologia. Na segunda parte, aprecia-se uma transformação epistêmica em curso no âmbito da pesquisa em música no Brasil; e descreve-se a noção de otografia, núcleo conceitual da produção artística que desenvolvi ao longo desta pesquisa de doutorado. A metodologia analítica permite constatar, na primeira parte, a transição de um regime de regulação moral da escuta musical baseado na disciplina para um regime baseado no controle; Na segunda parte, o assunto principal é uma diversidade de pesquisas artísticas que ativam o particular e o local como dimensões a serem recontextualizadas no âmbito da pesquisa em arte. O pressuposto básico desta tese é o de que a escuta é uma prática a ser pensada primordialmente em termos de agenciamento de desejo. Tal pressuposto conduz o trabalho a eleger a esquizoanálise como o seu principal aliado teórico, o que lhe permite esquivar-se de uma série de binarismos usualmente pressupostos pela discursividade acadêmica, tais como natureza e cultura, local e global, musical e extramusical. O desenho de escuta é necessariamente uma prática e um conceito: uma prática de consolidação de territórios existenciais específicos em função dos meios materiais agenciados; e um operador de linguagem, mediante o qual se pode elaborar um saber enunciado a partir do corpo, de ações particularmente significativas, de devires. / This thesis aims to position the concept of listening design. For this, it articulates a theoretical composition situated in the convergence between sound studies, media ethnography, practice-based research, and philosophies critical to representation. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, listening is explicitly used as a material and immaterial good distributed among audience commoditification, art and ethical debate. In order to situate the notion of listening design as a conceptual operator responding to this context, this work is divided into two main parts: the first part poses the general problem of the thesis by describing a set of power apparatuses that form majoritary policies of aurality; the second part unfolds the concept of listening design as both an operator and designator for practices transforming aural assemblages. In the first part, I describe a variety of material situations of audio consumption in the context of the military-entertainment complex, mainly the environment of online audio consumption. In this context, I analyze a paradigmatic apparatus for instrumental rationalization of the listening activity, and I assess the theoretical need to think in terms of an audio virology. In the second part, I discuss an ongoing epistemic transformation in the field of music research in Brazil; followed by a description of notion of otography, which is the conceptual nucleus of the artistic production that I developed throughout this doctoral research. The analytical methodology carried out here allows us to verify, in the first part, the transition from an economic-political regime of musical listening based on the discipline to a regime of regulation based on control; In the second part, the focus is on instances of artistic research that activates the particular and the local as dimensions to be recontextualized in the scope of academic art research. The core of this thesis is based on the argument that listening is a practice to be thought primarily in terms of assemblage of desire. This presupposition leads the work to take schizoanalysis as its main theoretical ally, which allows it to dodge a series of binarisms usually presupposed by academic discursiveness, such as nature and culture, local and global, musical and extramusical. Listening design is necessarily a practice and a concept: a practice of consolidation of specific existential territories in function of assembled material media; and a language operator through which one can elaborate a particular knowledge enunciated from the body, from particularly meaningful actions, from becomings.

In this dissertation, I analyzed Max Neuhaus’s (1939-2009) and R. Murray Schafer’s (b. 1932) commentary and work regarding noise, its control, and its relationship with the environment from the 1960 to the 1980s. Both Neuhaus and Schafer as well as those more directly involved with noise abatement research and policy were responding to the challenges and possibilities that noise posed in the latter twentieth century. In this project, I delved into these substantial links and argued that responding to and engaging with noise abatement policies was a key impetus to much of their work, which scholarship has yet to critically examine. Inspired by the listening strategies that Neuhaus and Schafer set forth, I also considered ways in which music educators and social activists might approach sound, becoming aural advocates or activists when working in their communities. The works selected for analysis reflected contemporaneous studies held in the USA and Canada investigating the psychological and physiological impact of noise on humans, animals, and their landscape. Just as these investigations grew into the 1970s, new attention developed towards acoustic ecology and public sound art, both fields dealing with the relationship between sounds, living beings, and the environment. Neuhaus’s works analyzed include the Listen series (1966-76), his New York Times op-ed piece titled “BANG, BOOooom, ThumP, EEEK, tinkle" (1974), and the Emergency Vehicle Siren Redesign project (1978-1989). These Neuhaus projects provided an alternative to the movement towards acoustic ecology put forward by his contemporary, Schafer. Analyses of Schafer and the World Soundscape Project’s (WSP) publications included Ear Cleaning (1967), The Book of Noise (1970), and A Survey of Community Noise Bylaws in Canada (1972). Featured were primary sources from the Max Neuhaus Papers (Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library), newspaper reviews, and clippings. Also included were interviews with artists/associates of Neuhaus from his performance career (Phil Orenstein) and his Sirens project (Ray Gallon, Owen Greenspan, Herr Lugus, Julia Prospero, and Wolfgang Staehle) as well as Schafer's fellow WSP collaborator, Hildegard Westerkamp.