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This is a composite thesis realised in a sound installation titled Blitz: Discursive bombardments in ‘the war on terror’ with a supporting exegesis. The exegesis offers a context for the project in sound art theory and practice, focussing specifically on the history of experimental ‘electrovocal’ expressive forms. It provides an account of the artist’s perspectives on the topic itself: contemporary political discourse on themes of security and danger. The exegesis also defines the scope of the project and documents the creative process undergone to realise its outcome: an installation apparatus capable of folding visitors into a heightened sense of the zeitgeist of early 21st century Australia. The genealogy of the project is described in terms of pivotal decisions and insights, technologies and techniques used, and aesthetic and ethical concerns. The nexus of voice – its material and metaphorical resonances in public discourse – and technologies for recording, manipulating and circulating sound are central to the development of this apparatus. The core body of sounds used in the installation are the voices of politicians, media presenters, members of the public and ‘experts’ and are presented in the form of short sound bites. These were sampled from many hours of recordings of news and current affairs material captured from Australian public broadcasters (radio and television, the ABC and SBS) over the pre-election months of 2004. The voices extol and debate diverse ‘angles’ on the so-called ‘war on terror’ and its physical enactments and outcomes in the war on Iraq. Other sounds offset the voices to enhance a sense of surreal ambience and introduce meanings through metaphor; children’s voices; rhythmically dripping taps; footsteps; ticking clocks; the drone of planes overhead. Various sound processing techniques are applied to samples and a sonic montage iscreated through random juxtapositions of sounds played synchronously from an assemblage of iPods. The figure of the labyrinth is central to the work on many levels, materially and metaphorically. It is used to structure movement through the installation space, a dimly lit ‘black box’ studio of ten by eight metres. Against the traditional practice of silently ‘walking the labyrinth’ as metaphor for a ‘journey within’, the Blitz labyrinth invites walkers to fold themselves into a dynamic field of allusions and aural messages and thereby to warp and shift the emerging play of meanings. The walk wends in and out of proximity to seven iPods set in small portable speakers and dispersed around the floor of the installation space. The ‘pods’ broadcast playlists of sounds bites that play randomly in ‘shuffle’ mode – against one another and against silences – to convey a sense of immersion in the discursive blitz of messages about terrorism and war from the media. The labyrinth is drawn out across the floor in dashed lines – made from small reflective rectangles that light up as visitors move around the space with torches – and is designed to suggest the feel of a road or a landing ground at night. The meandering trajectory of walking bodies around the curves of the labyrinth creates a choreography of audition, of moving and listening strategically to a barrage of sound from ever shifting perspectives. It invites walkers to listen for possibilities that may lie between and beyond the dominant narratives of western political leaders, to locate the gaps and silences. Beyond the pervasive noise of discourse normalised by politicians and the media, what is it that we might otherwise wish to hear and to speak?

This is a composite thesis realised in a sound installation titled Blitz: Discursive bombardments in ‘the war on terror’ with a supporting exegesis. The exegesis offers a context for the project in sound art theory and practice, focussing specifically on the history of experimental ‘electrovocal’ expressive forms. It provides an account of the artist’s perspectives on the topic itself: contemporary political discourse on themes of security and danger. The exegesis also defines the scope of the project and documents the creative process undergone to realise its outcome: an installation apparatus capable of folding visitors into a heightened sense of the zeitgeist of early 21st century Australia. The genealogy of the project is described in terms of pivotal decisions and insights, technologies and techniques used, and aesthetic and ethical concerns. The nexus of voice – its material and metaphorical resonances in public discourse – and technologies for recording, manipulating and circulating sound are central to the development of this apparatus. The core body of sounds used in the installation are the voices of politicians, media presenters, members of the public and ‘experts’ and are presented in the form of short sound bites. These were sampled from many hours of recordings of news and current affairs material captured from Australian public broadcasters (radio and television, the ABC and SBS) over the pre-election months of 2004. The voices extol and debate diverse ‘angles’ on the so-called ‘war on terror’ and its physical enactments and outcomes in the war on Iraq. Other sounds offset the voices to enhance a sense of surreal ambience and introduce meanings through metaphor; children’s voices; rhythmically dripping taps; footsteps; ticking clocks; the drone of planes overhead. Various sound processing techniques are applied to samples and a sonic montage iscreated through random juxtapositions of sounds played synchronously from an assemblage of iPods. The figure of the labyrinth is central to the work on many levels, materially and metaphorically. It is used to structure movement through the installation space, a dimly lit ‘black box’ studio of ten by eight metres. Against the traditional practice of silently ‘walking the labyrinth’ as metaphor for a ‘journey within’, the Blitz labyrinth invites walkers to fold themselves into a dynamic field of allusions and aural messages and thereby to warp and shift the emerging play of meanings. The walk wends in and out of proximity to seven iPods set in small portable speakers and dispersed around the floor of the installation space. The ‘pods’ broadcast playlists of sounds bites that play randomly in ‘shuffle’ mode – against one another and against silences – to convey a sense of immersion in the discursive blitz of messages about terrorism and war from the media. The labyrinth is drawn out across the floor in dashed lines – made from small reflective rectangles that light up as visitors move around the space with torches – and is designed to suggest the feel of a road or a landing ground at night. The meandering trajectory of walking bodies around the curves of the labyrinth creates a choreography of audition, of moving and listening strategically to a barrage of sound from ever shifting perspectives. It invites walkers to listen for possibilities that may lie between and beyond the dominant narratives of western political leaders, to locate the gaps and silences. Beyond the pervasive noise of discourse normalised by politicians and the media, what is it that we might otherwise wish to hear and to speak?

This is a composite thesis realised in a sound installation titled Blitz: Discursive bombardments in ‘the war on terror’ with a supporting exegesis. The exegesis offers a context for the project in sound art theory and practice, focussing specifically on the history of experimental ‘electrovocal’ expressive forms. It provides an account of the artist’s perspectives on the topic itself: contemporary political discourse on themes of security and danger. The exegesis also defines the scope of the project and documents the creative process undergone to realise its outcome: an installation apparatus capable of folding visitors into a heightened sense of the zeitgeist of early 21st century Australia. The genealogy of the project is described in terms of pivotal decisions and insights, technologies and techniques used, and aesthetic and ethical concerns. The nexus of voice – its material and metaphorical resonances in public discourse – and technologies for recording, manipulating and circulating sound are central to the development of this apparatus. The core body of sounds used in the installation are the voices of politicians, media presenters, members of the public and ‘experts’ and are presented in the form of short sound bites. These were sampled from many hours of recordings of news and current affairs material captured from Australian public broadcasters (radio and television, the ABC and SBS) over the pre-election months of 2004. The voices extol and debate diverse ‘angles’ on the so-called ‘war on terror’ and its physical enactments and outcomes in the war on Iraq. Other sounds offset the voices to enhance a sense of surreal ambience and introduce meanings through metaphor; children’s voices; rhythmically dripping taps; footsteps; ticking clocks; the drone of planes overhead. Various sound processing techniques are applied to samples and a sonic montage iscreated through random juxtapositions of sounds played synchronously from an assemblage of iPods. The figure of the labyrinth is central to the work on many levels, materially and metaphorically. It is used to structure movement through the installation space, a dimly lit ‘black box’ studio of ten by eight metres. Against the traditional practice of silently ‘walking the labyrinth’ as metaphor for a ‘journey within’, the Blitz labyrinth invites walkers to fold themselves into a dynamic field of allusions and aural messages and thereby to warp and shift the emerging play of meanings. The walk wends in and out of proximity to seven iPods set in small portable speakers and dispersed around the floor of the installation space. The ‘pods’ broadcast playlists of sounds bites that play randomly in ‘shuffle’ mode – against one another and against silences – to convey a sense of immersion in the discursive blitz of messages about terrorism and war from the media. The labyrinth is drawn out across the floor in dashed lines – made from small reflective rectangles that light up as visitors move around the space with torches – and is designed to suggest the feel of a road or a landing ground at night. The meandering trajectory of walking bodies around the curves of the labyrinth creates a choreography of audition, of moving and listening strategically to a barrage of sound from ever shifting perspectives. It invites walkers to listen for possibilities that may lie between and beyond the dominant narratives of western political leaders, to locate the gaps and silences. Beyond the pervasive noise of discourse normalised by politicians and the media, what is it that we might otherwise wish to hear and to speak?

O presente trabalho versa sobre o aproveitamento compositivo dos entornos sonoros. Para esta pesquisa em composição musical, foram utilizados, como campo de estudo, entornos sonoros localizados dentro de perímetros urbanos e, como materiais na aproximação ambiente/composição explorada, diversas potencialidades musicais dos sons que constituem os entornos sonoros e as organizações deles emergentes. Também foram contempladas como motivadoras e força de coesão nos processos compositivos realizados diversas características da escuta no meio ambiente e do fluxo do entorno sonoro com suas variações. As composições foram realizadas para meios acústicos e eletroacústicos, considerando-se o espaço de diversas maneiras. / This work deals with the compositional use of sound environments and their reflection. For this research in music composition, sound environments located within urban perimeters were used as a field of study, and as materials for the approach environment / composition that explore the diverse musical capabilities of the sounds that make up the surroundings and the sound of these emerging organizations. As a motivating and cohesive force in the processes undertaken, several characteristics of the listening in the environment and the flux of the sound environment and its variations have been included also. The compositions were realized through acoustic and electroacoustic media comprising the space in different ways.

O presente trabalho versa sobre o aproveitamento compositivo dos entornos sonoros. Para esta pesquisa em composição musical, foram utilizados, como campo de estudo, entornos sonoros localizados dentro de perímetros urbanos e, como materiais na aproximação ambiente/composição explorada, diversas potencialidades musicais dos sons que constituem os entornos sonoros e as organizações deles emergentes. Também foram contempladas como motivadoras e força de coesão nos processos compositivos realizados diversas características da escuta no meio ambiente e do fluxo do entorno sonoro com suas variações. As composições foram realizadas para meios acústicos e eletroacústicos, considerando-se o espaço de diversas maneiras. / This work deals with the compositional use of sound environments and their reflection. For this research in music composition, sound environments located within urban perimeters were used as a field of study, and as materials for the approach environment / composition that explore the diverse musical capabilities of the sounds that make up the surroundings and the sound of these emerging organizations. As a motivating and cohesive force in the processes undertaken, several characteristics of the listening in the environment and the flux of the sound environment and its variations have been included also. The compositions were realized through acoustic and electroacoustic media comprising the space in different ways.

O presente trabalho versa sobre o aproveitamento compositivo dos entornos sonoros. Para esta pesquisa em composição musical, foram utilizados, como campo de estudo, entornos sonoros localizados dentro de perímetros urbanos e, como materiais na aproximação ambiente/composição explorada, diversas potencialidades musicais dos sons que constituem os entornos sonoros e as organizações deles emergentes. Também foram contempladas como motivadoras e força de coesão nos processos compositivos realizados diversas características da escuta no meio ambiente e do fluxo do entorno sonoro com suas variações. As composições foram realizadas para meios acústicos e eletroacústicos, considerando-se o espaço de diversas maneiras. / This work deals with the compositional use of sound environments and their reflection. For this research in music composition, sound environments located within urban perimeters were used as a field of study, and as materials for the approach environment / composition that explore the diverse musical capabilities of the sounds that make up the surroundings and the sound of these emerging organizations. As a motivating and cohesive force in the processes undertaken, several characteristics of the listening in the environment and the flux of the sound environment and its variations have been included also. The compositions were realized through acoustic and electroacoustic media comprising the space in different ways.

L’auteur de cette thèse a réalisé, en tant que compositeur, un ensemble d’installations sonores. Ce travail part d’une composition déterministe et linéaire et mène progressivement à une œuvre ouverte. Durant les dernières années, ce travail a été influencé par les méthodes d’écritures utilisées dans la conception de jeux vidéo, aboutissant à des œuvres sonores spatiales et interactives. Dans le processus de conception de ces dernières, le compositeur va être amené à penser la conception sonore dans un espace virtuel ou réel en fonction des déplacements d’un auditeur. Une façon de mener cette démarche est de laisser l'auditeur interagir avec le système au travers de personnages non joueurs (PNJ). Un tel choix témoigne de l'évolution du rôle du compositeur depuis la construction d’une œuvre linéaire et déterministe vers celle d’une œuvre ouverte et non déterminisme. Pour une pièce donnée, le créateur laisse à l’interacteur un certain degré de liberté et au système un certain degré d'autonomie.Nous débutons ce travail par un état de l'art couvrant divers domaines, de l'art interactif aux agents intelligents.Le troisième chapitre est consacré à l'analyse des pièces interactives conçues par des musiciens, plasticiens, designers de jeux. De cette analyse, nous dégageons un ensemble de critères de classification et nous plaçons ces œuvres d'art dans un triangle Concepteur/Interacteur/Système (C.I.S.). La position d’une œuvre dans ce triangle détermine la latitude que laisse le concepteur aux deux autres protagonistes.Le quatrième chapitre pose la problématique de cette thèse. Nous sommes partis du fait qu’une méthode et à fortiori des outils informatiques sont souvent liés à un style d’écriture. L’histoire des outils d’écriture informatique, jusqu’aux moteurs de jeux vidéo, reflète des visions différentes de ce qu’est la notion d’interactivité dans un domaine et à une époque donnée. Nous proposons ici que le concepteur puisse prendre le point de vue d’un des deux autres protagonistes: l’interacteur ou les PNJ. Ceci aboutit à deux styles que nous appelons le style scripté d’une part et le style émergent d’autre part. Nous comparons ces styles d’un point de vue de l’écriture dans les jeux, de la notion de narrateur, de l’ouverture de l’œuvre et du style de programmation. Cette première comparaison formelle ne permet pas de tirer des conclusions convaincantes. Le cinquième chapitre est consacré à la conception et au développement d’une même installation, Le promeneur écoutant, selon les deux styles cités au chapitre précédent. La version scriptée a été réalisée dans le cadre du projet Terra Dynamica. Nous en proposons une seconde écriture en style émergent et comparons le résultat des deux approches. Nous parcourons l’ensemble des étapes de conception et de réalisation, de la spécification informelle à la programmation. Nous analysons du point de vue du concepteur ces deux styles. Nous montrons que le style émergent, séduisant à priori, aboutit à une complexité de création et de mise en œuvre très importante. Dans les deux cas, les lacunes et besoins en matière de méthodes et d’outils sont mis en évidence.Dans la conclusion, ce travail d’expérimentation est complété par une enquête donnant le point de vue de plusieurs concepteurs d’œuvres interactives sur notre problématique. Nous concluons par une synthèse de ce travail et une analyse de ses développements possibles tant sur le plan conceptuel de l’écriture que sur le développement d’outils auteurs. / The author of this thesis has worked as music composer on numerous sound walk art installations. During the last decade, this work has been influenced by the design methods used in video games, leading to interactive sound walk pieces. In the design process of such pieces, as compared with interactive music works, the composer must write her/his sound design in a real or a virtual space according to the listener’s promenade. A way to drive this walk is to let the listener interact with the System through Non Player Characters (NPC). Such an installation shows the evolution of the composer’s role from that of a deterministic creation to a non-deterministic one. For a given piece, the creator leaves to the interactor a certain amount of freedom and to the system, according its level of self-sufficiency, a certain amount of autonomy. According to these two parameters, each art piece can be positioned somewhere within a triangle D.I.S. which vertices are the Designer, the Interactor and the System. The main goal of this thesis is to analyze the goals and the needs of the designer of such interactive pieces, in terms of methodology and tools. We begin this work by a state of the art covering various fields, from interactive art to intelligent agents. The third chapter is devoted to the analysis of interactive pieces designed by musicians, plastic artists, game designers. From this analysis we propose a set of classification criteria and we place these art works in the DIS triangle. The fourth chapter raises the problematic of our research. We assume that the choice of a position in this triangle is directly related to a choice between two writing styles, the “scripting style” and the “emergent style”. In the scripting style, the designer takes the point of view of the interactor who becomes the narrator. In the emergent style, the designer takes the point of view of the NPC. The two styles are first compared according to the criteria presented in the previous chapter.For a deeper analysis of the two styles, we have designed, with the help of a development team, two versions of the same interactive sound installation The Listening Walker. The installation was created in Paris during the “Futur en Seine” Festival in June 2013 and shown as an art installation for ICEC 2013 in Sao paulo.The goal of this sound walk is to discover a virtual district of Paris around the Pantheon. This installation is designed as a video game with different levels of exploration. The player’s reward is the discovery of the city mainly via sound. Success depends on his listening behavior: NPC are moving around him, interpreting his moves, the direction he takes and the time spent listening particular sounds. Depending upon the listener’s attitude, each NPC has his own reaction such as running away, getting closer to the listener, ignoring him or helping him to discover secret areas. In the fifth chapter, we present the whole creation and development process of the two versions of the installation. It starts with the constraints and artistic choices. The informal specifications of the two versions are presented and the methods and programming methodologies used described. In both cases, the lack of efficient tools for non programmers is pointed out. This experiment shows also the great complexity of the emergent style compared to the scripting style: it is much more difficult to specify a world than to write a story, even an interactive one.In the conclusion, we corroborate our analysis with the point of view of creators working in different fields from interactive music to game design. Some possible extensions of this work are then presented.

if (){then ();} else {();} uses eight microphones to record sounds from the room for the entire duration of the exhibition. All sounds are archived and then called upon in seemingly random intervals and played from twenty-four speakers set up in the room. The recordings are then layered allowing the past and present to exist simultaneously, creating an interaction with the passage of time. Using analogue methods, mathematics, electronics, and coding languages I am interested in creating interactive sound environments inviting participants to help create the work. Playing with aural phenomena, I focus on basic methods of producing and processing sound to stimulate human interaction and play.

Submitted by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2016-08-05T14:37:54Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Guilherme de Castro Duarte Martins - 2016.pdf: 3312242 bytes, checksum: 3ed829717019a7e47206840d74e63a4b (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2016-08-05T14:39:20Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Guilherme de Castro Duarte Martins - 2016.pdf: 3312242 bytes, checksum: 3ed829717019a7e47206840d74e63a4b (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-05T14:39:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Guilherme de Castro Duarte Martins - 2016.pdf: 3312242 bytes, checksum: 3ed829717019a7e47206840d74e63a4b (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-07-11 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The following work aims to investigate the presence of sound on contemporary visual arts, through the study of artworks from artists who make use of the sonic matter to change and make arise new time-spaces in the middle of the daily experience. I investigate mainly the works of the Scotish artist Susan Philipsz (Lowlands, 2010) and the Brazilian artist Raquel Stolf (Grilo, 2006). I start from coining the concept of cartophonies, that would mean sound maps resulting from the cross-over of noises emitted not only from the artworks I study, but originated also from its surroundings, composing puzzles audible and inaudible forces, that circulate around and through these works. As sound maps in constant mutation, the concept of cartophony was produced as a mobile tool for the present research, helping to understand how sound not only represents the space it traverses, but also participates on the creation of the volatile lines of this space, modifying it and being modified by it every second. / Essa dissertação tem por objetivo investigar a presença do som na arte contemporânea, a partir do estudo do trabalho de artistas que se utilizam da matéria sonora para modificar e fazer surgir espaços-tempos em meio à experiência cotidiana. Investigo, principalmente, obras da artista escocesa Susan Philipsz (Lowlands, 2010) e da brasileira Raquel Stolf (Grilo, 2006). Parto do conceito de cartofonias, que seriam mapas sonoros resultantes do cruzamento entre ruídos emitidos não apenas pelas obras estudadas, mas vindos também de seu entorno, compondo jogos de força, audíveis ou não, que rodeiam e atravessam essas obras. Enquanto mapas sônicos em constante mutação, o conceito de cartofonia foi criado como uma ferramenta móvel para a presente pesquisa, auxiliando-me no entendimento de como o som não apenas representa o espaço que percorre, mas também participa na criação e no traçado volátil desse espaço, modificando-o e sendo modificado por ele a todo instante.