Abstracts
Andrew Plain - The Filmic Voice and Digital Dolby Sound
The paper examines some of the issues that are explored in-depth in a longer essay co-authored with Helen Macallan in the forthcoming anthology, 'The Grain of the Voice in Digital Media and Media Art' (eds., Norie Neumark, Ross Gibson, Theo van Leewen: MIT). It considers the repercussions of the shift from Dolby Stereo (introduced in 1975) to Dolby Digital (1991) and similar digital surround formats (DTS and SDDS, 1993) on the production and reception of the voice in cinema. It will look, for example, at the way digital technology opens up new possibilities for the production of the filmic voice, including a re-conceptualization of the voice-body relationship. The epistemological, aesthetic and narrative-related issues that arise from a more inclusive concept of the voice will also be examined. Exemplars will be given from Jonathon Glazier's 2000 movie, Sexy Beast and the presenter's own work in film sound design.
Peter Blamey - Sine Waves, Acoustics and Aesthetics
This discussion aims to consider the relationship between acoustics and music through the figure of the sine wave. Within both acoustics and music, the sine wave (whether considered as a sound in the form of a sine tone, or as an image in the form of the sine curve) has played an important role in definitions and understandings of the nature of musical sound since the late nineteenth century. It represents a sound with one frequency component, and is considered the simplest form of harmonic motion. Yet a critical investigation of both the history of their theoretical formulation and their practical use in acoustic experimentation and musical composition reveals more than a simple 'reductionist' reading of sine waves allows. Philosopher Michel Serres has frequently questioned the problematic manner in which pure and simple forms limit and conceal multiple interpretations, in so far as they present as complete, theoretical knowns - singular and without residue. Following Serres, this discussion will attempt to unpack the singular interpretation of the sine wave. Through identifying and exploring some of those conceptual, empirical and epistemological 'residues' that have been excluded or sidelined in accounts of sine waves, this discussion will investigate the intermediate role sine waves play in interactions between science and art.
Mitchell Whitelaw - After Inframedia: Presence and Transmateriality
In 2001 I proposed the notion of "inframedia" in response to the tape hiss, clicks, cuts and crashes of the experimental sound and music of the time. Here I want to reflect on and develop the implications of this concept, now that the thrill of the "glitch" has passed and electronic music has assimilated its vocabulary of media artefact. Literary theorist Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht proposes an aesthetics and culture of presence that exists in dynamic tension with meaning. Inframedia practices seem to exemplify Gumbrecht's "presence culture", with their focus on materialising the otherwise imperceptible structures of its media systems, and their indifference to conventions of meaning, narrative and content. Presence, or an aesthetics of manifestation, also suggests links between inframedia audio and some of the practices that have followed it - databending, fused audiovisuals and live coding. Finally, if the inframedia urge acts to ground or reveal media technologies, what comes after that moment of revelation? The assimilation of the glitch as a stylistic cue shows how it can be reintegrated as content; this presentation will outline another possibility, for a practice that exploits the functional immateriality of the digital without surrendering a sense of its constant and contingent re-embodiment - a practice of transmateriality.