Illuminations I: Calibration

TY - ADVS

T1 - Illuminations I: Calibration

AU - Barnard, Matthew

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - Building upon previous explorations by the composer into binaural compositional practice and the resulting concepts and aesthetics , this piece develops the research by investigating, producing and exploiting binaural room impulse responses (BRIRs) for the creation of binaural images. The binaural negative space - the spatial opposition of the recordist and listener (Barnard 2010, 2016) - is explored here in a technical a distillation: the necessary soundscape-consequence of in-ear binaural capture is eschewed and instead an array of spatial kernels is deployed to impart the spatial displacement of elements through convolution of abstract, ‘space-less’ elements with the BRIRs. The necessity of a navigational recording strategy, as is identified in typical binaural soundscape capture (Barnard 2010, 35) is replaced instead by the required development of a spatial array, delineating the potential of the compositional work. This array is no less peculiar in nature than a typical in-ear binaural recording, which has the spatial characteristics of the recordist ‘baked-in’ to the signal. In fact, those characteristics are abstracted further, distilled into spatial kernels – the essence of the recordist available for application onto any other signal: a convolved co-presence. Now this concept of negative space is animated in abstraction, free from the soundscape anchoring that otherwise informs the technique. Barnard, Matthew. 2010. “The Sounds of Displacement.” PhD diss., University of Hull. Barnard, Matthew. 2016. Woche (with apologies to Ruttman and Brock) Programme Note : Sound as excitation of space a flash through the unlit quiet earshot illuminations as shimmering series of spark Comprising multiple personal binaural room impulse responses (BRIRs) - samples of space in the human spatial register - this piece explores the modulation and dynamic of the spatial image via predominantly abstract materials. The space-less, abstract synthesis and feedback is given architectural animation through convolution with the BRIRs, imparting the composer’s peculiar, cumulative directional filtering: an echo of occupied space now intaglio, a nebulous anatomical topography, a spatial mould through which the sonics are extruded and tamed.

AB - Building upon previous explorations by the composer into binaural compositional practice and the resulting concepts and aesthetics , this piece develops the research by investigating, producing and exploiting binaural room impulse responses (BRIRs) for the creation of binaural images. The binaural negative space - the spatial opposition of the recordist and listener (Barnard 2010, 2016) - is explored here in a technical a distillation: the necessary soundscape-consequence of in-ear binaural capture is eschewed and instead an array of spatial kernels is deployed to impart the spatial displacement of elements through convolution of abstract, ‘space-less’ elements with the BRIRs. The necessity of a navigational recording strategy, as is identified in typical binaural soundscape capture (Barnard 2010, 35) is replaced instead by the required development of a spatial array, delineating the potential of the compositional work. This array is no less peculiar in nature than a typical in-ear binaural recording, which has the spatial characteristics of the recordist ‘baked-in’ to the signal. In fact, those characteristics are abstracted further, distilled into spatial kernels – the essence of the recordist available for application onto any other signal: a convolved co-presence. Now this concept of negative space is animated in abstraction, free from the soundscape anchoring that otherwise informs the technique. Barnard, Matthew. 2010. “The Sounds of Displacement.” PhD diss., University of Hull. Barnard, Matthew. 2016. Woche (with apologies to Ruttman and Brock) Programme Note : Sound as excitation of space a flash through the unlit quiet earshot illuminations as shimmering series of spark Comprising multiple personal binaural room impulse responses (BRIRs) - samples of space in the human spatial register - this piece explores the modulation and dynamic of the spatial image via predominantly abstract materials. The space-less, abstract synthesis and feedback is given architectural animation through convolution with the BRIRs, imparting the composer’s peculiar, cumulative directional filtering: an echo of occupied space now intaglio, a nebulous anatomical topography, a spatial mould through which the sonics are extruded and tamed.

M3 - Composition

ER -