CONCEPT

 This is a practice-based research project presenting new personal approaches to acousmatic music practices facilitated by sonic engagements within abandoned urban environments. In the tradition of Urban Exploration, this project visited numerous abandoned and disused urban infrastructures to capture sonic materials through various field recording techniques. By employing a self-refletive approach to creative practice, this project explores the research question of how participating in sonic engagements within abandoned and disused urban environments can facilitate new approaches to acousmatic musical practices.

 The project starts by exploring field recording techniques within abandoned and disused urban infrastructures in and around Sydney, Australia, from the period between 2019 and 2021. These field recording expeditions include capturing sonic materials throughout some of Sydney's most iconic abandoned locations, including the White Bay Power Station located at Rozelle, the St James disused rails tunnels beneath Sydney's CBD and the Mosman Gunner tunnels, to name a few. Audio field recording techniques explored include the recording of impulse response functions or IRF (used for obtaining acoustic data), ambisonic field recording and binaural field recording techniques.

 Once the sonic materials were collected and analysed, the process of discovering their ability to facilitate new approaches to acousmatic music began. This process includes exploring a number of ways to shape, arrange and transform the sonic materials within digital studio-based compositional arrangements. Also explored was the introduction of additional sound synthesis to the sound design process and compositional arrangements. For this purpose, a euro rack modular synthesiser system was designed to provide layers of additional sound synthesis to the compositional arrangements. Over the lifespan of the project, this system evolved to support the evolving nature of the methodology. Through a period of self-reflection the portfolio of compositional work evolved to express several ways of working with the field recording materials.

 Through the development of a focused listening practice within abandoned urban environments, the unavoidable sonic presence of myself, defined as the 'sonic-self’, was discovered throughout the field recording materials. This observation, led to an eventual exploration of narrative approaches within acousmatic musical compositions. Each of the three compositions evolved to explore one of three modes of sonic narrativity; namely sonic auto-ethnography, spatial narrativity and artistic sonic responses to spatial narrativity. Once the three compositions were completed, a period of self-reflection gained a clearer perspective of the theoretical components embedded within works. A re-contextualisation of the literature once the compositional process concluded allowed a more accurate definition of the compositional outcome. This process defines the portfolio produced as part of this project as context-based electroacoustic music exploring modes of acousmatic spatial narrativity.