GRIDs — a multi-component output comprising massively multichannel sound installations and associated research texts.
- Submitting institution
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De Montfort University
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 33014
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
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- Location
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- Brief description of type
- A collection of creative and critical work on a related topic that address different aspects of a single project and are collectively greater than the sum of their parts
- Open access status
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- Month
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- Year
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- Yes
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- The COVID pandemic has severely disrupted the programme of research for this output. Access to resources required for the completion of works was significantly restricted, and anticipated performances (including EMS 2020 (Leicester), BEAST FEaST (Birmingham)) were cancelled, thus delaying completion and preventing full public dissemination and documentation (both national and international) of Contraption, while also preventing dissemination of earlier works in the series. Detailed photographic and video evidence of the work in a studio setting, along with ambisonic and binaural renderings of the audio content, is provided in lieu of such documentation.
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- GRIDs is a series of sound sculptures involving geometric arrays of many (in some cases hundreds of) loudspeakers. These permit, by virtue of being both massively and geometrically multichannel, the generation of intricate spatial sound environments that encourage ambulatory investigation and interaction by audiences.
The research consolidates and substantially develops threads emerging from earlier research (beginning with Studies on Canvas [2004]). Its principal aim is to explore means of extending acousmatic compositional practice into multichannel installation environments, while increasing its public reach. Accordingly, the works present spectrally rich soundworlds encompassing both the mimetic and the musical (Emmerson 1986; Lewis 2014; Wishart 1996), but offer dramatically different experiences from those of acousmatic music encountered in the concert hall (c.f. Harrison 1998). Each accommodates a different way of experiencing multichannel space, in terms of both the physical arrangement of its loudspeakers and its relationship with the surrounding environment, while offering an experience that is both intimate and immersive. Thus the works are designed to make rich acousmatic sound experiences accessible—both physically and sonically—to non-specialist audiences, in turn increasing public engagement in the sonic arts.
The research has required the development of extensive hardware and software solutions for the management and deployment of sound within large-scale multichannel ecosystems. It has also prompted a range of compositional strategies appropriate to such systems, and the consideration of issues surrounding site and situatedness in the presentation of real-world sound environments, as articulated in scholarly writing both submitted as part of this output (Batchelor 2015, 2019) and elsewhere (Batchelor 2007, 2013, 2018). The works have been presented in a range of locations, both gallery-based and public (inc. Southbank (London), Sibelius Academy (Helsinki), University of Birmingham, Liverpool Hope, Highcross Shopping Centre and Phoenix Square (Leicester)), in accordance with the pursuit of diverse audiences.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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