Sound; Space; Play

Category: Events; Symposium
Date: Friday 10 April 2015

30th May 2015

‘Sound is not something merely projected into a space. Space is not merely sound’s container. To the contrary, sound has the potential to define space, to create metaphorical walls. Sound “happens” in space; its waves traverse a distance from source to ear.’ - Shannon Mattern

Sound; Space; Play is a day-long symposium and public-concert at the School of Music (University of Leeds) on 30 May 2015 that explores the interdisciplinary research area of sound, space and play in a human context.

During the last decade, a multi-disciplinary body of literature has been created that suggests a collective scholarly interest in the link between sound and space. The literary body consists of contributions from the fields of architecture, acoustics, sociology, music and media studies amongst others.

Blesser and Salter’s text Spaces Speak: Are you Listening? advocates the importance of auditory spatial awareness, indicating that it should be integrated with the musical experience. Artists such as Brandon LaBelle and Bernhard Leitner bring the concern of human interaction with sound and space to the heart of their work. Media scholar Shannon Mattern’s interdisciplinary course entitled ‘Sound and Space’ addresses ‘the sonic qualities of space, the spatial qualities of sound, and the myriad other links between space and sound.’ These are just a handful of examples, taken from disparate discipline areas, that all address the same concern. This symposium aims to address this area as a single interdisciplinary area, asking how this might be productive.

The symposium is aimed at scholars and practitioners and will be centred around practice. Attendance will be free of charge.

Submissions are open to all, however, we especially encourage submissions from PGR students and early career researchers.

We hope that the scope of work submitted will cross as many discipline areas as possible.

Peter Ablinger will be the Keynote speaker at the event.

Contribute: https://soundspaceplay.wordpress.com/contribute/