Soundscapes Theory and Practice

Taking the term soundscape as a starting point, this essay by José Manuel Berenguer addresses a number of concerns relevant to understanding the listening experience within art and everyday life. Tackling questions such as phenomenology, cognition, new media, aesthetics and the overlap between art and science, Berenguer engages in a critical analysis of recent sound art practices, using both significant historical examples and his own experience.

In film and media production, ambient sound is a standard term that denotes the site-specific background sound component providing locational atmospheres and spatial information of public places. In this article, the specific role of ambient sound to create the context for the spatial experience in film and media production has been thoroughly examined in the light of Sound Studies. The article investigates the capacity of ambient sounds to sculpt the presence of a site by producing an embodied experience of the site. The article brings in a much-needed focus on the complex relationship between sound and site by examining the spatial environments recorded, mediated, and reconstructed by sound practice. Guided by the production studies of sound, the article draws on the theories of diegesis, mimesis, and presence to reformulate the notion of the soundscape while keeping a conceptual base in phenomenology of sound in analyzing the spatial and atmospheric listening experience. The article cites examples from representative Indian films and few of my own sound artworks as case studies to make critical listening and analysis of the processes through which ambient sound practice enhances the spatial and atmospheric sensations. The article draws insights from prominent sound practitioners in the form of long interviews conducted by me over several years and self-reflective insights on my own work. The practice-led inputs make the empirical basis of the article shedding light on the production processes providing links between certain techniques available to specific phases of sound production and aesthetic principles shaped by the respective phases of practice with ambient sounds. The article locates a distinct shift occurring through these trajectories of sound practice and relates this shift to the recent “spatial turn” in Sound Studies, making valuable contributions to the field interested to inquire about the emerging spatiality and public-ness in sound artworks.

The research is based on the concept of “soundscape”, which refers to a perceptual model that completes the traditional notion of perception (based on sight as dominant sense), with an attention to the so-called “minor senses” – in particular hearing – as possible guides for reinterpreting the relationship between individual and space. This approach originates from the belief that the sensory elements play a fundamental role to understand everything exceeding from a mere “descriptive” contact with the environment, giving access to the most intimate, emotional, symbolic, cultural aspects involved in the relation. Over the last forty years, these studies have produced broad and complex suggestions, but they mostly consisted in theoretical investigations or musical experimentations, which have rarely caught the attention of the disciplines involved in the design and space transformation. The research is aiming at placing the concept of soundscape within the architectural field, for it to find an operational output, as well as allowing architecture itself to include elements that could better support the established models of interpretation and management of the environment.
The thesis is contextualized within the field of “Architectural Technology”, and it outlines the notion of “Environmental Design” (Progettazione Ambientale) as a key factor for a possible realignment between operational and theoretical perspectives. Accordingly, the project is conceived as a process which refers to a continuously changing object, not only because of the transformation of its environmental context, but also the cultural references that guide its interpretation. That's why the design activity has to establish a relation with the landscape at its different scales, considering the morphological components involved as well as the elements shaping local identity, strongly related with the perceptual ones. The reference to a performative normative model – instead of a simply prescriptive one – completes the framework, fostering a consideration of design based on the long-running dynamics triggered by the transformation.
The research develops within an inter-disciplinary context, which includes architecture and philosophy, focusing both on the theoretical dimension – aiming to promote a better understanding of the involved concepts – and on a more operational one – investigating the practical consequences that might follow the exploration of new conceptual fields.
The first chapter, starting from a survey of the evolution of soundscape studies during the last decades, focuses on the relation between this field and the architectural one, defining the recognition of a marginal intersection, mainly attributable to Kevin Lynch's perspective and further experimented by Michael Southworth.
Despite the limited aknowledged relations between soundscape and architecture, it was possible to bind the two fields together from an external approach, whose main concept is certainly the one of “multisensory”, which nowadays represents a widespread notion within the architectural panorama, referring to a large number of studies and project experiences. The analysis, however, has highlighted a rather disjointed scenario – both from a theoretical and practical point of view – based on individual approaches, generally far from shared reflections and methods for the project. The survey aims then to identify a common background, trying to clarify the theoretical, aesthetic and social aspects involved in the debate. For this reason, the investigation revolved around the recovery of some philosophical issues that had already influenced the past architectural experience, such as the works of Enzo Paci or Gernot Böhme.
The research has pointed out some paradigmatic concepts that could foster a common dialogue: the notion of “atmosphere”, for example, is a crucial one, referring to a lot of consolidated studies and a number of project experiences, even by prominent figures among contemporary architects. In recent times, Peter Zumthor, in particular, is the one who brought the attention on this concept, relating it to a vision of architecture strongly oriented towards the perceptual and emotional relation with space.
Starting from this background, the research has tried to identify the elements that could foster the idea of “project of the atmosphere”. First of all, it was necessary to identify the inherent difficulty of the concept, which has to draw on shared practices – based on objectivity – in order to determine consequences that should be evaluated in an individual horizon, strongly influenced by impulsive and emotional factors. The survey aimed to identify elements mediating between these areas, such as the concept of “stage” (inszenieren), or the many experiments conducted in the neuroscience area, aiming to defining notions such as emotion or beauty.
The second chapter addresses the notion of soundscape, considering the fields that currently play the most effective role in the interpretation and management of sound. The first one concerns the legal constraints that frame the evolution of the real acoustic scenario. The approach followed – in agreement with the soundscape studies – assumes as totally ineffective any method trying to control the acoustic elements through quantitative restrictions, without considering the qualitative relation established between sound and the perceiver’s cultural system.
A more in-depth analysis of the laws, actually, led to identify elements in favor of a more articulated diversification of sound. It is, however, a marginal and rather difficult-to-use scenario, which makes the regulatory apparatus inflexible and inefficient in relation to the punctual and evanescent nature of sound.
This critical consideration does not aim to solve the problem, revealing, on the contrary, the difficulty of establishing a golden mean between a control apparatus related to cultural elements – based on a qualitative but largely arbitrary point of view – and another one that refers to absolute values, being impacted by the outlined issues. Therefore, the research focuses on a “typological” consideration of sound, able to put in relation the individual perception of sound (even starting from different cultural backgrounds) with social and symbolic values. Murray Schafer himself pursued this goal, through the introduction of three categories named “keynote sounds”, “sound signals” and “soundmarks”, defining a model that has been improved during the years, as demonstrated both by Barry Truax’s “communicational” perspective, and the discussions held in the center CRESSON giving rise to the concept of “sound effect” – among many others.
The third chapter shifts from a theoretical interpretation of sound to a more operative field, trying to establish a direct relation with the architectural project. Starting with a benchmarking of case studies in which sound could orient the morphological elements, the analysis underlines once again the distance between soundscape studies and architectural approach. The concept of “sound design” itself turns out to be contradictory: either because of its inability to lead the project as a whole – since hearing cannot replace visual models because of the cultural assumptions rooted in society – or due to the ambiguity of its program, in between artistic and technical field.
To interface with the complexity of the “project”, considered as one single act of interpretation and transformation of space, it was therefore necessary to shift toward the multisensory perspective, which fosters the integration between the visual approach and the “minor senses”, without creating further biased models in which a single sense replaces the visual predominance. The last paragraphs of the chapter offer a contribution to better understand the concept of “multisensory project”. The first one starts from an individual consideration of the perceptive and the emotional feelings that I personally established with a specific environment, to show how these components are strictly related with the structural elements of architecture. The second highlights how the sensory interpretation of urban space can provide indications for the construction of new spaces. The third draws from a number of philosophical concepts and studies conducted during these years encouraging further reflection.
The fourth chapter includes a collection of three dialogues I had with Luisa Bonesio, Rosario Giuffrè and Vittorio Gregotti, who kindly accepted to give their opinion on some issues raised in the research. The discussion – in addition to representing a moment of great personal enrichment – allowed a better contextualization of the research, adding different points of view to the work and including new essential themes, such as the relationship between perception and aesthetics, landscape and multisensory, as well as music and architecture.

Explorar la construcción de un método de investigación cualitativo que rescate y analice el ejercicio de la experiencia estética como una fuente para la gestión de información y su posterior interpretación sistematizada en la búsqueda de explicar procesos, individuales o colectivos, que contribuyen a la modificación del imaginario social.
El trabajo consiste entonces en diseñar un método de abordaje de las subjetividades por medio del sonido.  Para ello se ha explorado la subjetividad de diferentes grupos sociales en México en relación con la condición de discapacidad. Con ese fin se lleva a cabo la sonorización de recreaciones personales alrededor del tópico de la discapacidad y el registro de reflexiones subjetivas sobre las razones de dichos referentes sonoros.

A research that explores the construction of a qualitative research method that rescue and analyze the performance of the aesthetic experience as a source for information management and subsequent systematic interpretation, seeking to explain individual or collective processes, that  change social imaginary.
It consist in the  design of a method to address subjectivities of different social groups in Mexico in relation to disability, through sound, conducting personal sound recreations on disability and registration of subjective reflections on the reasons for the sound reference.

In recent years, is establishing a cooperation between secondary schools and universities for the development of methodologies that encourage pupils to comprehend their acoustic environment and incorporate it in creative projects 1. These methodologies are often based mainly or partly on two pillars: the theory of Pierre Schaeffer on the sound objects and the seven criteria for describing them, and the practical approach of Murray Schafer regarding the observations on the acoustic ecology and the soundscapes. These two pillars provide a set of basic criteria with which the pupils can comprehend and describe their surrounding sonic environment, using them, at the same time, in group improvisation and music composition. The seven criteria elucidated by soundscape paradigms can be a helpful tool in our effort to develop the pupils' power of observation through empiricism.

Motion is an elementary part of our everyday life; it determines our perception and appropriation of environmental features. We are immersed in the world while on foot, grounding awareness of the three-dimensionality of the world and ourselves through movement. As a site-specific installation artist, movement is a crucial aspect of my practice in the sense that it makes the work occur. I argue that the installation comprises the experience of the participant through his or her interaction with the space and the intervention that has occurred through movement. The experience is one which unfolds and changes as the participant walks through the installation and its location. How does the encounter through movement of the work of art affect our experience of it, in particular, location(site-) specific art work outside of the gallery? Together with this, how does the sense of narrative develop through the movements within the installation and location?

Motion is an elementary part of our everyday life; it determines our perception and appropriation of environmental features. We are immersed in the world while on foot, grounding awareness of the three-dimensionality of the world and ourselves through movement. As a site-specific installation artist, movement is a crucial aspect of my practice in the sense that it makes the work occur. I argue that the installation comprises the experience of the participant through his or her interaction with the space and the intervention that has occurred through movement. The experience is one which unfolds and changes as the participant walks through the installation and its location. How does the encounter through movement of the work of art affect our experience of it, in particular, location(site-) specific art work outside of the gallery? Together with this, how does the sense of narrative develop through the movements within the installation and location?

ABSTRACT A short term scientific mission initiated through Cost TD0804 was carried out for evaluation, measurement and analysis of soundscapes. Several young researchers were introduced in binaural measurement technology, enhanced sound analysis, evaluation techniques, procedures and had the opportunity to perform field and laboratory tests. For the course measurement technology and workstations were available and a team of experienced researchers trained and supported the young researchers.

The article examines my recent multi-channel sound composition: Decomposing Landscape (2015), inquiring into the complex, nebulous and evolving relationship between sound and site that is thoroughly challenged in the practice of phonography or field recording-based sound artworks dealing with environmentally-troubled sites. Phonography-based compositions and sound artworks are developed through location-aware listening and field recordings made at specific sites and landscapes. The compositional strategy in these works relies on artistic interventions through the intricate processes of field recording and processing of recognizable environmental sounds using multi-channel spatialization techniques. The artistic transformation renders these sounds into a blurry area between compositional abstraction and portrayal of their site-based origins. The question is: how much spatial information is retained and how much abstraction is deployed in these sound artworks? A discussion of this work sheds light on some approaches and a methodology of handling site-specific evidence in sound art production.

Τον Μάιο του 2014, μαζί με μια ομάδα φοιτητών που αποτελούν μέλη του Συνόλου Ζωντανής Ηλεκτροακουστικής Μουσικής του Τμήματος Μουσικών Σπουδών του Ιονίου Πανεπιστημίου (Σύνολο), επισκεφτήκαμε, στο πλαίσιο της Εικαστικής Πορείας (Τμήμα Εικαστικών και Εφαρμοσμένων Τεχνών, Πανεπιστήμιο Δυτικής Μακεδονίας), τις λίμνες των Πρεσπών. Σκοπός της ομάδας ήταν η παρατήρηση και ηχογράφηση των ηχοτοπίων των λιμνών και των τόπων που τις περιβάλλουν. Η προσέγγιση, η παρατήρηση και η καταγραφή των ηχοτοπίων υπήρξε κυρίως διαισθητική. Παρότι η συγκεκριμένη ομάδα έχει καταγράψει σημαντική εμπειρία στην παρατήρηση και κατηγοριοποίηση ηχοτοπίων, δεν ακολουθήθηκε κάποια συγκεκριμένη μεθοδολογία. Αφεθήκαμε να παρατηρούμε και να προσαρμόζουμε τις μεθόδους μας στις συνθήκες που συναντούσαμε. Κατά συνέπεια, όλες οι παρατηρήσεις που ακολουθούν, οι περιγραφές και οι κατηγοριοποιήσεις, αν και βασίζονται σε καθιερωμένες μεθοδολογίες, δε συνιστούν τελικές και ολοκληρωμένες παραδοχές. Οι σκοποί της δράσης του Συνόλου ήταν δύο:
1. Η παρατήρηση, η καταγραφή και η κατηγοριοποίηση επιλεγμένων ηχοτοπίων των λιμνών και των τόπων που τις περιβάλλουν.
2. Η δημιουργία ενός μουσικού έργου (δομημένου αυτοσχεδιασμού) το οποίο θα χρησιμοποιούσε τις ηχογραφήσεις, αυτούσιες ή επεξεργασμένες.
Στο πρώτο μέρος του κειμένου θα ορίσουμε την έννοια του ηχοτοπίου ως είδος σύνθεσης και ηχητικής καλλιτεχνικής δημιουργίας. Στη συνέχεια, θα εξετάσουμε τα ηχοτοπία των Πρεσπών και τις ιδιαίτερες ποιότητές τους. Τέλος, θα αναφερθούμε στο μουσικό έργο που προέκυψε από τα ηχοτοπία των Πρεσπών και στη μέθοδο με την οποία το Σύνολο τα χρησιμοποίησε.

The subject of the present analysis is the neighbourhood audiosphere that emerges from interviews with residents of Wrocław. Though the planned interview scenarios did not contain direct questions concerning neighbourhood sounds, surprisingly a lot was said about what and how could be heard in the respondents' homes, and about what meanings and values were attributed to this. Thus, the author's task was to investigate the audial building blocks of neighbourhood relations - to describe how the sphere of sounds created a community, i.e. neighbourhood. Her theoretical and methodological background was Bruno Latour's thought (the actor-network theory). What also proved inspiring was R. Murray Schafer's concept of acoustic community as well as Miron Białoszewski's "Chamowo", with its interesting take on the sonic aspect of living in the neighbourhood. The author tries to reconstruct the audiosphere of blocks of flats and housing estates (characteristic of a big city) and to reformulate the sociological typologies of neighbourhood relations by taking into account the agential and network-creating role of sounds as social glue.