The development of computing in Brazil followed a peculiar path, shaping cultural production since the earliest encounters between artists and technology. Beginning in the 1960s, musicians and computer scientists made initial attempts to use computers for artistic purposes, at a time when it was still possible to keep pace with developments in Computer Music in North America and Europe. However, restricted access to foreign technologies and the political context following the 1964 military coup—two deeply interrelated factors—made it unfeasible to establish a national system capable of sustaining continuous production in Music & Computing before the early 1990s. Such development would have required both strong institutional support and freedom of artistic expression, conditions that were not present. This article traces these trajectories through key artistic experiments and public policies related to computing. Rather than offering a comprehensive catalogue, it presents a transversal perspective that highlights the relationship between the formation of the Computer Music field and state policies up to the mid-1980s. By interweaving these parallel narratives—linking cultural practices and political frameworks—the study sheds light on how computer-mediated artistic production contributed to the constitution of Electronic Music in Brazil.

This paper re-evaluates the significance of José Vicente Asuar (1933–2017), a pioneering figure in Latin American computer music, shifting the focus from the hardware construction of his COMDASUAR system to the innovative software he developed for algorithmic composition. While Asuar’s hybrid digital-analog computer is noteworthy, the true core of his contribution lies in his original machine language programs designed for the Intel 8080 microprocessor. This study examines how Asuar thought about and designed algorithms specifically created for generating musical structures, processing symbolic data in real-time, and enabling interactive performance. By analyzing newly discovered handwritten notebooks containing his meticulous code documentation, we uncover Asuar’s deep engagement with low-level programming to express complex musical ideas. His approach, focused on the computer as an “amplifier of the imagination,” prioritized the development of software to facilitate generative composition and real-time manipulation of musical parameters. This paper argues that Asuar’s legacy rests not solely on the COMDASUAR hardware but primarily on his visionary software architecture, which transformed the computer into a dynamic compositional partner. In doing so, he anticipated later developments in interactive music systems, demonstrating a pioneering approach to computer music that placed software innovation at its center.

This paper examines Summermood (1981), an electroacoustic work composed by Antonio Russek for bass flute and live electronics, situating it within the Mexican electroacoustic scene of the 1980s and in dialogue with international developments in live electronic performance. A pivotal work in both Russek’s career and flutist Marielena Arizpe’s repertoire, Summermood, stands among the earliest Mexican compositions for electronically modified acoustic instruments. It has not been able to be studied or performed due to the absence of published documentation, its dependence on the obsolete DeltaLab DL-4 digital delay unit, and its original association with Arizpe, who retired early following an accident-related injury. Drawing on archival documents, interviews, recordings and the graphic score and Russek’s notes, this paper analyses the work’s aesthetic conception, its integration of extended flute timbres with electronic processing, its graphic notation and the collaborative practices that informed its creation, arguing for its significance in the historiography of Mexican electroacoustic music. While briefly acknowledging the preservation challenges posed by obsolete technologies, the central aim of this paper is to reassemble Summermood as a case study that illuminates Mexico’s underexplored contribution to the global avant-garde of the late twentieth century.

This article examines the most renowned electroacoustic music festival in Chile so far, from its first edition in 2001 to 2012, when its continuity was interrupted. It focuses on two aspects that appeared relevant and took place consistently during the period under study: (1) the generation of networks, circulations and aesthetic crossovers that were favoured by the festival; and (2) the perspective of the electroacoustic concert as a space for research and experimentation in devices and formats deemed appropriate for a particular experience of music. To this end, primary and archival sources of the article’s author as well as other direct participants in the festival’s organisation were reviewed. Based on this, the relevance of these types of activities in the dissemination of these art forms is determined, as well as the need for proper management to grow and consolidate these spaces.

The Laboratorio Digital de Música (LADIM), or Digital Music Laboratory, is located at the heart of Universidad Simón Bolívar as part of several other experimental laboratories (e.g., computational mechanics, cellular biology or nuclear physics). It has played a leading role in the curation and performance of electroacoustic and technology-mediated music at the most prestigious international festivals of contemporary music held in Venezuela (such as the Latin American Music Festival 2004–2016, and Atempo 2006). Furthermore, it has organised independent concerts and events, trained composers and musicians, produced a discreet body of literature and collaborated with institutions like the Society of Electroacoustic Music in Sweden (SEAMS) and the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA, Stanford). Throughout its 21-year history, LADIM has been a central figure shaping the contemporary music landscape of Venezuela’s 21st-century scene. Despite its repertoire amounting to 75 electroacoustic works, encompassing acousmatic, mixed, video and live-electronics pieces, the laboratory has not yet established a formal archive. This article represents the first effort to reconstruct its historical milestones, while identifying the repertoire collection linked to it for the purpose of a future systematic study.

This article presents the recent production and institutional trajectory of Studio PANaroma, one of the leading centres for research and creation in electroacoustic music in Latin America. Over the course of three decades, PANaroma has functioned not only as a multichannel electroacoustic music studio, but also as a pedagogical hub – nurturing new generations of composers through a coherent artistic vision embedded within Brazil’s public university system. This article discusses the studio’s aesthetic orientation and artistic values, as well as the collaborative research strategies currently being developed within SOMNIUM, its newly established research group. Two case studies are presented. The first stems from a recently concluded six-year Thematic Project entitled Harmonicity and Inharmonicity in Instruments of the Percussion/Resonance Family in Interaction with Electronics (2019–2025). This research investigated how the harmonic and inharmonic spectra of percussion instruments can inform both compositional strategies and analytical methodologies. The second case outlines a new line of inquiry still in its early stages, currently in the process of project design and preliminary research. This investigation introduces the concept of Sonoclisis – a neologism coined to describe the acoustic phenomena resulting from the physical coupling of sounding bodies – exploring its implications for both sound-based composition and analysis.

This article explores the role of Chilean electroacoustic music as a medium for articulating cultural memory, particularly in response to significant historical events and unresolved traumas of the past 50 years. It examines five relevant works by Iván Pequeño (*1945), Leni Alexander (1924–2005), Federico Schumacher (*1963), José Miguel Candela (*1968) and Rodrigo Cádiz (*1972), analysing their engagement with voice, historical memory, trauma and political testimony through the lenses of acousmatic theory, sonic phenomenology and trauma studies. The article argues that Chilean electroacoustic music serves not only as a record of historical violence but also as a performative space where memory can be inhabited, archived, transformed and made audible again. It highlights the use of human voice recordings as vehicles of memory, the integration of radio art and testimonial narratives and the concept of ‘acousmatic storytelling’ to engage listeners in a multi-valent listening experience that blurs the lines between abstract sound and historical index. Ultimately, the article demonstrates how Chilean electroacoustic music functions as ‘embodied historiography’, using sound to write history and engaging listeners’ imagination, cognition and empathy to embrace through sound experiences of memory, political statements and justice.

This article investigates identity formation among contemporary South American electroacoustic music composers through the lens of place, territory and socio-political context. Drawing on interviews with 27 composers from across the continent, the study explores how artistic practices are shaped by affective ties to geography, histories of colonialism, academic migration and technology. The analysis highlights five intersecting identity factors: mestizaje and cultural hybridity, decolonial thinking, political activism through sound composition, the tension between belonging and displacement in artistic mobility and the workaround aesthetic rooted in limited resources. Rather than portraying scarcity as a limitation, composers often embrace it as a creative force that fosters innovation and local specificity. The findings suggest that electroacoustic music in South America reflects not only a diversity of individual trajectories but also shared cultural dynamics that distinguish the region’s creative processes. These insights contribute to broader discussions on decolonisation, identity and the global circulation of music technologies.

All around Santiago, Chile, there are water towers known to citizens as Copas de Agua. These towers are recognised as modern industrial heritage and integral landmarks within the city’s urban landscape, contributing significantly to its cultural identity. This article presents strategies for exploring aural architecture by creating a new space defined by sound in motion within an existing architectural structure with unique morphological and acoustic characteristics through the medium of sound installation art. The project Polyphono, a multichannel sound installation located within the Copa de Agua of Quinta Bella, Chile, establishes a dialogue between three different spaces: the invisible space of the sound installation, the existing space of the water tower and the symbolic space of experience. In this process, an interior space of sound emerges within the physical space of acoustic reactions, which is experienced by the audience as aural architecture. This dynamic situation involves animating the monumentality of the water tower, transforming it through the performative action of the sound installation, thereby intensifying the historical significance of the site in physical, sensory, political and social terms. The outcomes are framed as a transitional space, from site-specific sound to aural architecture, creating an affective space for aesthetic experience.

This essay explores how the musical practices of four contemporary Latin American sound artists – Mar Alzamora, Pablo Bas, Ana Rodriguez and Eufrasio Prates – engage with ecological crises and socio-environmental issues. Focusing on the region’s biodiversity and colonial histories, we combined a critical literature review with the analysis of works involving soundwalks, electroacoustic compositions, free improvisation and real-time synthesis. These practices incorporate environmental sound, oral memory and situated listening to construct eco-sonic narratives critical of colonial legacies. Rather than aiming to highlight artistic innovation, the essay investigates how these works contribute to an expanded understanding of Latin American sound/landscapes within environmental sound art. Through the examination of aesthetic, technological and political strategies, we identified principles such as relational listening, spatial immersion and collective creation as central to these practices. Our findings contribute to discussions on art as a mode of knowledge, showing how sonic approaches can question dominant narratives, reshape perceptions of place and foster ecological awareness.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, Latin American artists turned low-cost, open platforms such as Mozilla Hubs, Twitch, Jitsi, YouTube and OBS into ephemeral infrastructures for collaborative VR concerts, 3D live-coding sessions, collective streaming events and networked Algoraves. Drawing on participant observation, event documentation and informal interviews, this article examines these cases with a focus on La Fábrica VR (TOPLAP México) and related experiences in Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Argentina and Costa Rica. We argue that these practices materialise a situated, collaborative and tactically informal technological production that reconfigures agency, embodiment and listening in immersive environments.

This article addresses sonic experimentalism in Latin America from a critical perspective based on a review of artistic projects that have been active in recent years in different countries of the region. Its main objective is to discuss whether there are features that can be conceived as characteristic of Latin American sonic experimentalism, whether it is relevant to define issues that affect the people and communities that practice it in a cross-cutting manner, and, if so, whether it is feasible to talk about strategies that bring together people and groups who, although they work in different countries and conditions, consider themselves as part of the same community. Through the three axes chosen to structure this article (sonority, technology, and collaborative platforms), several aspects will be addressed that link a significant number of sound and experimental music artists in different locations within the territory in question. This will lead to a discussion about identity expressed in sound practices, using a cultural studies approach. By foregrounding voices that “ruin the algorithm” of coloniality, this research enriches Latin American sound studies debates and seeks to contribute to the study of experimentalism in the Global South.

This article explores an initiative aimed at fostering a culture of electronic music and sound arts in Peru, focusing on the Open Science project, Circuito Abierto (2022–2024). It explores how Circuito Abierto, an annual artistic residency rooted in Open Science culture and organised by the Laboratorio de Música Electroacústica y Arte Sonoro at the Universidad Nacional de Música (UNM, formerly the Conservatorio Nacional de Música), challenged traditional and conservative educational structures within Peru’s academic landscape. The project promoted an open, collaborative approach to music creation, aimed at bridging the gap between academic and popular music scenes in the education of electronic music. Circuito Abierto may serve as a case study for addressing broader historical challenges in Peruvian music education, particularly with regard to music technology and experimental electronic sound art practices.

This article proposes the electromagnetic soundwalk as an anti-method for consumer research, a compositional practice that listens to the infrastructural residue of market environments without aiming to interpret, represent or explain. Using a handheld electromagnetic detector, the walk transposes imperceptible emissions into audible frequencies, revealing the operational murmur of retail systems. These include devices such as wireless payment systems, contactless terminals, touch-screen tablets and digital signage, technologies that organise and condition consumer experience, but do so silently, beneath the threshold of ordinary perception. These electromagnetic emissions trace the infrastructures that shape and facilitate consumption yet remain formally outside marketing discourse. The soundwalk stages a form of methodological estrangement, where listening becomes a way of staying with systems that persist without expressive form. While rooted in soundwalking traditions, the project diverges from immersion or participation. Positioned within the sonic turn in consumer research, the paper reframes sound as residue, an ambient trace of logistical systems. For marketing, this is a speculative proposition. For sound studies, it is an example of compositional listening used to breach an adjacent field. What results is not a soundwalk for its own sake, but an acoustic method for hearing how consumer systems continue, quietly and without reward. The first section of the paper adopts a speculative and affective tone, free of citation, to evoke the experiential register of the method. Subsequent sections develop the theoretical and methodological foundations in a more conventional academic voice.

Bayu Nokturnal II is an electroacoustic soundscape composition commissioned by the Borneo Ensemble in 2024, developed as a reimagining of Seed of Life 4: Rest and Shelters, a binaural fixed-media work composed in 2021. Rooted in the ecological and cultural identity of Gua Tempurung, a limestone cave in Perak, Malaysia, the piece explores how the interplay of acoustic instruments and environmental field recordings evokes a sense of place, space and belonging. Inspired by Chris Watson’s El Tren Fantasma, the work expands from fixed media into a live, spatialised dialogue with geophonic and biophonic elements. This paper positions Bayu Nokturnal II within the evolving discourse of ecocomposition, a practice shaped by environmental awareness and sonic interactivity. It draws on Matthew Burtner’s Syntax of Snow and Hildegard Westerkamp’s Fantasie for Horns II. These works foreground the role of soundscape as an active compositional agent. Bayu Nokturnal II employs an aural-feedback score using grid-cell timing, Scientific Pitch Notation and gesture-based instructions to foster real-time responsiveness to the soundscape. This strategy replaces conventional metre with listening-driven interaction. The result is a Malaysian site-specific composition contributing to global dialogues in acoustic ecology, environmental music and performative listening.