Oscar Alvarez – Sound Arts Year 2

For my assignment, I have chosen to work with Koreeda Hirokazu’s 2023 film – 怪物 (Monster).

I chose this film, perhaps selfishly, as it holds a poignant memory for me. During the last two years, I have been sporadically studying Japanese in order to communicate with my partner’s family better, and Monster was one of the first Japanese language films I had seen without subtitles that clicked for me. Beyond this, the films themes of innocence, nostalgia and childhood, coupled with hazy, beautiful vistas of south-of-nowhere countryside capture a similar sentiment my own personal work attempts to achieve.

The film follows Saori, worried when her son Minato begins exhibiting strange behaviours. He comes home with injuries, cuts his hair, and speaks in a cryptic manner that suggests something is occurring at school. She believes Minato’s teacher is responsible. In a three-act structure, the film retells the same events from the perspectives of the Saori, the teacher, and finally Minato himself – the narratives blending.

In approaching the sound design, I’d like mirror the ambiguous nature of the narrative, using equally as obscured sounds and ambience. I also intend to incorporate vague, incomplete hints towards motif, as the individual perspectives and narratives of the film repeat and intertwine, yet never quite match.

In this session I explored the GRM Spaces plugin within 8 channel fully for the first time. By developing an understanding of the various spacial parameters of the software, the aesthetic possibilities of the sound system’s format became apparent – as well as the practical challenges I may face.

Following this, I began to consider the kind of sound I want to create and how and where these elements will exist in a physical space. From the examples of surround sound pieces I have heard so far, I feel that I will keep any larger, drone-like material to the outside of the room, vast and encompassing. Closer to the listener, I would like smaller, fragmented elements that would occasionally scatter around the environment. I feel these fragmented elements should also have an acoustic quality to them. Smaller, sporadic acoustic sounds (particularly the voice and wind instruments I have noticed) seem to be incredibly effective when played intermittently.

In a way, I imagine the layers of sound and its moving parts as though they were similar to an atomic model – rings of sound shells, with smaller acoustic elements caught in their orbit, swirling and brimming with energy against the slower, firm waves of drone.

While considering this cyclical structure of sound, I was reminded of an artists work , ASUNA’s site-specific installation, 100 Keyboards, of whom I am continually inspired by:

While not covering any near as many dimensions as a surround sound format, the deliberate placing of keyboards in a circular format positions the listener inside the sound source. Here, an acoustic sound field is produced through a “weaving a textile pattern” , meaning that as a listener moves they encounter different, varying points in the circle. Because of this, each audience member interacts with the exhibit in their own way (the installation also invites listeners to lie down). This sense of audience participation, and of creating an experience unique to each visitor is something I would like to pursue in my upcoming work.

Next, I need to consider the relationship between frequency and where they are best placed in the surround sound format.

In this session I listened to examples of compositions designed for a spacialisation setting and began thinking about sound in relation to the X, Y and Z axes. I also considered speaker placement and the way in which quieter or louder instances within the space can emerge as both a source of inspiration and a challenge to consider, such as “dead spaces”.

My score for the upcoming Multi-Channel Playback.

As described in the image, I intend for the installation to possess a hazy quality in which (dependant on ones position within the space) certain ‘ghost notes’ or ‘ghost melodies’ may appear to be perceived – as though one were attempting to recall the sounds of half-forgotten memory. By scattering the music across a physical space, perhaps the listener could be tempted into an attempt to trace the sounds trajectory.

William Basinski’s ‘Disintegration Loops’ and the ambient-drone music of Chihei Hatekeyama are primary sources for my sonic palette- vast swathes of rich, foggy sound, containing the faintest traces of melody. As a foundational idea, I intend for the piece to possess a tangible sense of musicality – very much in the same way in which Hatekeyema’s drones are interwoven with motif and melody.

This session was my first encounter with a sound system larger than stereo, and upon hearing examples composed for multiple channels, I was immediately filled with inspiration about how I could adapt and convert my current sound into something with much more ‘physicality’. I felt myself engaging with the sound in a way I had never previously done. By tracing the movement of the sound across the space, I had become fully immersed into the work. This sense of physicality and movement is something I would like to consider when creating my upcoming work.

As a long time fan of his work, I began to research the various sound installation works of Viennese musician Fennesz. The particular piece I have included in this post is ‘The Last Days of May’ in which he describes the intent of the music within the installation space as “meant to blend into everyday soundscapes and occasionally stand out”.

This reflects my own personal philosophy in my own practice, in addition to approaching this upcoming work – one of rich yet unintrusive sound, cohesively residing alongside whatever audio may occur in its vicinity as though it were an improvisational flair. I am beginning to consider my aforementioned interest in the physicality of spacialised audio, and how this may interact with a subtle, blended soundscape.

I began to consider the relationships between sound and moving image, including the roles and unique interplay the two mediums possess.

For the sessions creative exercise, I ‘mapped out’ on paper the sound of a nearby environment, in this case, the fountains outside the campus building. Through this, I started to review the way in which I understand sound to exist in a physical space – constantly in flux, fading and rising in a blurred urban cacophony. To charter effectively the way in which sound moves and dissipates led me to observe my surroundings in a way I hadn’t for a long time. To my surprise, even amongst the business of such an environment there were instances of sporadic musicality.