Sound as a sonic experience beyond the formalism of music has shown its fundamental role in audiovisual narratives since the emergence of sound in cinema. The immersivity accomplished by sound designers has shaped our imaginations about futures, and emblematic sounds such as the Jedi laser sword and Blade Runner ambience have been imprinted deeply in our affective memories.
In something we could call a relation of mutual development with the creative aspects of Cinema, its industry took this even further through technical development of sound reproduction. Today we are able to access immersive experiences facilitated by technologies such as Dolby Atmos and 5.1 and 7.1 speaker systems. It result interesting to trace this techno-aesthetic relation back in history to the first appearances of synchronization between sound and image in Paris between 1900 and 1920, the later techno-aesthetic developments of Musique Concrète in the late 50s by Pierre Schaeffer, followed by the development of cinema theories around sound by Michel Chion between 1980 and 2000.
Notions of immersivity in Virtual Reality (VR) are also subject to sonic thoughts, and the emergent field of sound spatialization has found a rich ground for further developments in the domains of virtual reality. An artistic and scientific concern about the psychoacoustic aspects of the experience of tridimensional soundscapes is still giving rise to new techniques for sound recording, edition and reproduction. Now, we can see that techniques such as Ambisonics recording, encoding and decoding, and binaural recordings are all over the place, to the point that we are witnessing the struggle for the industrial standard for VR sound.
On the other hand, the computational developments of the late 40s rendered a field of possibilities for composers interested in concepts and philosophies of process. Although there were old approaches to ideas of algorithmic music (ancient Greeks or Mozart’s Musikalisches Wurfelspiel for instance), Iannis Xenakis and Lejaren Hiller set in motion a whole set of ideas and practice that today we can see embodied in Artificial Intelligence applied to music creation and interactive music in general. What is usually known as procedural music is another field of sonic practice that has found a fertile soil in VR, especially for media art practices such as VR installations.
[PROPOSAL] WORKSHOP | AMBISONIC WORKFLOW IN REAPER
This is an online workshop of two sessions, with a first informative session of one hour where basic elements and tools for sound spatialization edition (in DAWs) will be introduced, and second hands-on session of three hours where these basic elements and tools will be explored in a creative exercise. At the end of the workshop the participants will understand the workflow and principles of sound spatialization techniques based on ambisonics, and will have created a spatial sound piece of their own.
In order to follow the creative projects development properly it is considered a maximum of 10 participants.
The value assigned for the workshop facilitator is €500.
Each participant will receive a participation fee of €20, if their participation is complete, i.e. they have to be present during the whole workshop and create a piece at the end.
The workshop can be open to more people to assist online, but the facilitators activities (answering questions, preparations of materials and following the development of the piece until its end) will be limited to the official participants.
Session dates:
Introductory session | 14.10 | 18h-20h (Lisbon Time)
Hands-on session | 21.10 | 18h-21h (Lisbon Time)
Showing works | 27.10 | 19h-21h (Lisbon Time)
[PROPOSAL] WORKSHOP | ALGORITHMIC COMPOSITION IN PURE DATA
This is an online workshop of two sessions of two hours, with a first informative session where basic elements and tools for algorithmic composition will be introduced, and second hands-on session where these elements and tools will be explored in a creative exercise. At the end of the workshop the participants will have a notion of what an algorithm is and how such material could inform their own artistic practice.
In order to follow the creative projects development properly it is considered a maximum of 6 participants.
The value assigned for the workshop facilitator is €500.
Each participant will receive a participation fee of €30 (participants will need to work more than in the previous one), if their participation is complete, i.e. they have to be present during the whole workshop and create a piece at the end.
The workshop can be open to more people to assist online, but the facilitators activities (answering questions, preparations of materials and following the development of the piece until its end) will be limited to the official participants.
Session dates:
Introductory session | 04.11 | 18h-20h (Lisbon Time)
Hands-on session | 11.11 | 18h-21h (Lisbon Time)
Showing works | 18.11 | 19h-21h (Lisbon Time)
[PROPOSAL] BOUNTY| IMMERSIVE SOUND WORKS
This bounty proposal is thought for the people who spend their time in the workshops creating immersive sound pieces, but is also open to all who want to participate.
The participants should present a sound piece that reflects about the spatial aspect of sound, and is open to all kinds of forms, for instance field recording, music and sound design. Three pieces will be selected to receive bounties of €50 and be minted each month.
Total requested budget: €1.680
October requested budget: 500 + 20x10 + 50x3 = €850
November requested budget: 500 + 30x6 + 50x3 = €830
