Sonic Phantoms: Composition with Auditory Phantasmatic Presence

by Barbara Ellison, Thomas Bey William Bailey, Francisco López (Editor)

Overview

In this book, Barbara Ellison and Thomas B. W. Bailey lay out and explore the mystifying and evanescent musical territory of 'sonic phantoms': auditory illusions within the musical material that convey a 'phantasmatic' presence. Structured around a large body of compositional work developed by Ellison over the past decade, sonic phantoms are revealed and illustrated as they arise through a diverse array of musical sources, materials, techniques, and compositional tools: voices (real and synthetic), field recordings, instrument manipulation, object amplification, improvisation, and recording studio techniques. Somehow inherent in all music—and perhaps in all sound—sonic phantoms lurk and stalk with the promise of mystery and elevation. We just need to conjure them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501391767
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/30/2021
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.53(d)

About the Author

Barbara Ellison is an award-winning composer and artist whose work explores ghostly presence and substance in a plethora of sonic and visual realms. Her creations have been presented internationally in live performances, installations and audio releases, including her latest 3-hour album, Cyber-Opera.

Thomas Bey William Bailey is an active recording artist and author of several books on sonic art and its sociological impact, including: Microbionic: Radical Electronic Music and Sound Art in the 21st Century (2009), Unofficial Release: Self-Released and Handmade Audio in Post-Industrial Society (2012), and To Hear The World With New Eyes: A Cultural History of the Synesthetic and Cross-Sensory Arts (2016).

Francisco López is internationally recognized as one of the main figures in the realms of sound art and experimental music. Over four decades of intense exploration and creative work with environmental recordings all over the world ­–manifested in sound expeditions, live performances, installations, workshops, and releases in hundreds of labels – López has crafted a unique iconoclastic sonic universe based on a profound listening to the world.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
Preface
Acknowledgements
1 Phantasmagenics
1.1 Sonic phantoms as emergent presence
1.2 Presence by apophenia
1.3 Apophenia and creativity
1.4 Creativity with ambiguity
1.5 Ambiguity as intentional practice
2 Inducing the phantasmatic
2.1 Compositional phantasmatic strategies and techniques
2.1.1 Repetition
2.1.2 Persistence
2.1.3 Layering
2.1.4 Noise
2.1.5 Accentuation
2.2 Realms of sonic phantasmatic experience
3 Phantasma Instrumentalis: The Realm of the Instrument
Compositional Series: Harp Phantoms
3.1 Sonic exploration of the instrument
3.2 Instrument preparation & sonic blotscapes
3.3 Ritualization in performance
3.4 Structure and possible variations
3.5 Inherent patterns
3.6 Auditory streaming
3.7 Sonic figure and ground
3.8 Listening modes and perceptual competition
3.9 Accentuation of harp sonic phantoms
3.10 A second life of Harp Phantoms in the studio
4 Phantasma Materialis: The Realm of the Object
Compositional Series: Drawing Phantoms
4.1 Initial material explorations (for a literal 'phono-graphic' performance)
4.2 The Drawing Room
4.3 Transcendent 'boundary loss'
4.4 Automatic drawing – ghosts and dissociation
4.5 Drawing Phantoms performance
4.6 Expanding by narrowing: everyday and induced trance
4.7 Loop multiplicity
4.8 Drawing Phantoms séance
4.9 'EVP' and 'OVP'
5 Phantasma Humana: The Realm of the Voice
Compositional Series: Vocal Phantoms
5.1 Katajjaq
5.2 Vocal Phantoms#18 (for live voices)
5.3 Ancient and recent vocal techniques of illusion
5.4. CyberSongs: Text-to-Speech-to-Song
5.5 Micro-temporal mechanisms
5.6 Semantic satiation and semantization
6 Phantasma Naturalis: The Realm of Nature
Compositional Series: Natural Phantoms
6.1 Listening and recording
6.2 Natural polyphony
6.2.1 Layering
6.2.2 Interlocking
6.2.3 Transitions
6.3 Natural Phantoms
6.4 Beyond composition
7 Coda: Otoacoustic Emissions: The Phantom Within
References
Index

Editorial Reviews

Sonic Phantoms channels the spirits of those artists and theorists who have long understood the instability of our relation to the world while providing its readers with an intensely personal insight into a compositional practice that seeks to enable in others a different form of knowing and being in the world. A vital reminder for our post-truth times that we are active agents in the production of the strange hinterland that lies beyond and between us, and of the critical role of art as an interventionist act.” —Greg Hainge, Professor of French, The University of Queensland, Australia, and author of Philippe Grandrieux: Sonic Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2017)

“Sonic Phantoms is full of wonders, describing research and practical matters of great breadth and depth across time and culture. Like one of the sources quoted, the work itself is 'radically inclusive and universalizing,' and a pleasure to read: the book is written in sensible language without compromising scientific accuracy and practical psychological reality. In this book, the 'perceptive' ear finds resources, examples, philosophical techniques, and compositional strategies, discoursing on the real illusions of human perception as it relates to our natural and aesthetic interactions with the world.” —Michael Lee Gendreau, Acoustician and Composer, USA

“In plural voices and with great eloquence, the book takes us on a high-speed trip through the hallucinatory landscape of sonic works, revealing the phantasmic potential and intent of music and its listening, and conjuring from locked grooves, loops, and repetitions the composer as 'revealer of new worlds.'” —Salomé Voegelin, Professor of Sound, London College of Communication, UAL, UK, and author of The Political Possibility of Sound (Bloomsbury, 2018)

From the Publisher