Sound Art 

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Most of my sound art projects have been directed either towards radiophonic practice or environmental sound in site-specific contexts, examining critical issues and topics around landscape, ecology, ethnography and anthropology from both documentary and poetic perspectives. This includes investigations into conversational practice, acts of listening, the uncertainties of language, the instabilities of the voice and speech and sociolinguistics. Conceptually I'm drawn to ideas relating to rupture, disruption, dislocation, transmission and disarticulation, all fundamental elements in the history of experimental radiophonic practice.

Behind much of my recent theoretical work is a consideration of recorded sound as sympathetic magic and listening as magical realism. I hold to the notion that the recording chain, from microphone to loudspeaker, is in fact a form of contagion, of sympathetic magic, as analysed and described in Marcel Mauss’ seminal study A General Theory of Magic. This theoretical position takes account of the anthropological foundations of our emotionally and socially constructed responses to audio recordings.

Electroacoustic musical composition and radio or sonic art more generally not only share a common ancestry but also thrive on processes such as metamorphosis and mutation. I like to keep the two apart, considering the musical domain in terms of abstraction and that of the sonic arts as offering a vehicle for the examination of themes, topics  and concepts, each requiring its own methodology.