My research rethinks existing compositional methods in electroacoustic music. Whereas in the past, composers of such music selected recorded sounds and developed them to produce a musical form, my methods involve visual media as a means of guiding and directing both the choices of sound materials and the approach to form. For example, I am currently using images from the infographics pioneer Fritz Kahn as a visual stimulus; my project called Music – Bodies – Machines has led me to examine ways in which we read visual images, map images into sound, perceptual modalities, and notions of expectation within electroacoustic music.
This project, supported by the Kahn family, has produced seven original compositions that have been awarded in the Musica Nova International Composition Competition, Prix Russolo, performed around the world, published on CD, with the novel method employed being the subject of a forthcoming journal article in the Arts and Interdisciplinary Research Journal. In order to understand the relationships between electroacoustic music and visual media, I have worked alongside a range of interdisciplinary colleagues in the field of perception and music psychology.
Much of my current research is a development of my doctoral work, which examined expectation within electroacoustic music, and produced two analytical frameworks describing composer methodology. A suite of accompanying pieces, some of which were commissioned, explored expectation through silence, gesture and texture, mimesis and abstraction.
