This article presents and discusses a table of audiovisual transformations based on practice-based experience. The transformations were designed to reinforce the link between sound and object by considering what a particular audio process would look like if translated into visual form. The creative work involves installations that focus on objects integrated with projection mapping and electroacoustic sound. Examples of other artists who create object-based works are introduced, followed by a discussion around how electroacoustic music can influence audiovisual approaches. Screen and installation-based audiovisual theory expands on this and links to a two-part table of transformation strategies. The first part of the table describes process-based links that were created to imagine how certain electroacoustic studio techniques would translate to alter visual material. The second part describes broader conceptual links between audio and visual elements. The findings offer an insight into how electroacoustic practice can inform audiovisual composition choices. Whilst the intended use was for sound installations, there is significant scope for others to adopt and adapt the transformation strategies beyond this, including visual artists who wish to work with sound and those seeking to further theorise audiovisual relationships in a variety of settings.

Notating electroacoustic music can be challenging due to the uniqueness of the instruments employed. Electronic instruments can include generative components that can manipulate sound at different time levels, in which parameter variations can correlate non-linearly to changes in the instrument’s timbre. The way compositions for electronic instruments are notated depends on their interfaces and the parameter controls available to performers, which determine the state of their sound-generating system. In this article, we propose a notation system for generative synthesis based on a projection from its parameter space to a timbre space, allowing to organise synthesiser states based on their timbral characteristics. To investigate this approach, we introduce the Meta-Benjolin, a state-based notation system for chaotic sound synthesis employing a three-dimensional, navigable timbre space and a composition timeline. The Meta-Benjolin was developed as a control structure for the Benjolin, a chaotic synthesiser. Framing chaotic synthesis as a specific instance of generative synthesis, we discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the state- and timbre-based representation we designed based on the thematic analysis of an interview study with 19 musicians, who composed a piece using the Meta-Benjolin notational interface.

This study investigates experimental luthiery and sound art practices in Latin America through the lenses of postcolonial theory and acoustemology. Within this framework, the musical instrument is conceptualised as a sound-producing object and an active site of cultural representation, historical memory and resistance. These practices, diverging from conventional luthiery traditions, embrace collective, conceptual and material-based modes of production, establishing alternative knowledge systems through sound. Drawing on the works of artists, such as Walter Smetak, Marco Antônio Guimarães, Joaquín Orellana, Wilson Sukorski and Tania Candiani, this study explores how sound mediates relationships with space, the body, memory and technology. Conceptual instrument design is thereby positioned as an aesthetic-political tool developed in parallel with transformations in auditory regimes and responding to epistemic inequalities. This study also focuses on modes of production shaped by technological exclusion, gender and postcolonial identity formation. Experimental luthiery in Latin America is presented as a field of artistic expression and a multilayered epistemic site for the generation of alternative knowledge systems, political subjectivities and spatial justice strategies.

This text addresses the materiality of radio art, situating it within the theoretical frameworks of contemporary research on new materialism as well as the materiality of media and sound. The analysis employs perspectives from Christoph Cox’s sonic materialism and approaches by such writers as Salomé Voegelin, Gregory Whitehead, Allen S. Weiss and Margaret Hall, who emphasise the ontological autonomy of sound and its impact on space and listeners. A critical close reading of the relevant literature is conducted with regard to its applicability to radio art. The article analyses radio art practices structurally and phenomenologically across composition, reception, materiality and technology, aligning with practice-informed media analysis. The author’s aim is to outline and systematise diverse theoretical approaches and frameworks that capture the materiality of radio being, as well as to reveal the ways in which the radio medium co-creates artistic sound reality. The results of the literature and artistic practice analysis highlight the significance of sound’s materiality and its relational character, indicating that sound does not exist in isolation but in interaction with the environment, technology and listener. Consequently, seven dimensions of radio art materiality are delineated, which integrate existing concepts and provide a comprehensive perspective on radio artistic works.

The development of electroacoustic music in China over the past four decades has been shaped not only by the nation’s modernisation strategies but also by the interplay of historical contexts, temporal frameworks and cultural connotations. While certain achievements have been made in the current phase, the entrenched dualistic framework of ‘China versus the West’ and a lack of critical inquiry fundamentally constrain the potential for further advancement in China’s electroacoustic music. Positioning ‘Chineseness’ as a central strategy in electroacoustic music composition has proven effective in specific historical contexts. However, with the evolution of the times, this strategy requires re-examination and reassessment within contemporary contexts. This paper seeks to trace the developmental trajectory of electroacoustic music in China and analyse existing academic research to identify and unpack its deeper, underlying issues. By introducing a broader ecological perspective, the paper aims to transcend the rigid, dichotomous framework dominated by Chinese-Western dualism, deconstruct cultural essentialism and critically reassess the positioning of Chinese electroacoustic music within these constructs. Finally, it will explore the potential possibilities and responses of an ecological perspective in practice, based on a selection of compositional practices, including my own work Mixobloodify.

Recent developments in spatial audio and immersive technologies have expanded creative possibilities for composers and sound artists. This article presents a novel prototype of a spherical microphone with an ellipsoid casing and ten motorised condenser capsules, each capable of real-time adjustment of orientation and polar pattern. Unlike fixed-pattern or conventional ambisonic arrays, this design enables dynamic control over spatial coverage and directivity, offering new opportunities for multichannel recording, live performance and interactive sound art. While software-based spatialisation offers some flexibility, physical reconfiguration of capsules provides superior responsiveness and avoids latency, phase artefacts or resolution loss. This is especially critical in performance contexts where immediate acoustic adaptation is required. The system allows direct manipulation of capsule parameters during rehearsal or installation, effectively transforming the microphone into a performative instrument. The article compares the prototype with existing commercial ambisonic microphones, highlighting its distinctive advantages in workflow and compositional strategy. Use-case scenarios demonstrate how real-time control over spatial parameters enhances both technical precision and artistic expressiveness. The article concludes with a discussion of future directions, including collaborative testing with practitioners and integration into creative environments where spatial transparency, fidelity and interactivity are essential.

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.

This essay investigates intermedial interference – a perceptual phenomenon arising from the interaction of media features within the intermedial space – in the context of electroacoustic audiovisual composition. Grounded in visual music and intermedial arts traditions, this research explores strategies for combining, integrating and fusing sound and moving images to create artefacts that transcend conventional multimedia juxtaposition. This essay refers to the author’s doctoral practice-based research, in which a portfolio of six works is examined through the study, discussing the nature of interference, the interaction of media features in the intermedial space, the role of balance in managing perceptual equilibrium and novel compositional methods, including associative mapping and synchrony typologies. A case study of one of the portfolio works illustrates the application of these concepts, emphasising remediation, meta-narrative and audience interpretation. The findings contribute new insights into intermedial audiovisual practice, offering methodologies for composers to harness media interactions and foster open, subjective engagements with intermedial artefacts.

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.

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 article addresses the question of experiential dimensions of space in sound, in electroacoustic music and sound arts practices in particular. We suggest that these practices are limited by the generalised way that spatial audio techniques are communicated, and we attempt to develop a tentative method that would enable discussion and sharing of spatial aspects in sonic environments. These modes of articulation would permit a translation of the experience of space in sound into other modalities. Reporting from a series of workshops, we outline a three-phase method that moves through the stages of listening, describing, recreating and imagining the sonic spaces. In the final stage, a speculative design approach shows that shared sonic spatial experiences are essentially relational. Topics relating to expectations, biases and language – such as memory and imagination – and the methods of mapping and speculative design are addressed in the discussion. Through the explorations presented in this article it becomes evident that different artistic musical practices still show the same need to develop articulations that enable the integration and communication of spatial relationships. The divide between the development of new technologies for spatial audio and the conceptual frameworks for understanding and communicating spatial sonic knowledge can be bridged, and eventually the development of spatial audio should be fuelled by the dynamics between these two poles.

This article explores the intersection of electroacoustic music in multichannel immersive audio environments and trauma-informed therapy practices through gestural mediation in artistic works. Drawing on Jean-François Augoyard’s definition of anamnesis, the article examines how spatial audio can evoke memories and mirror the psychological landscapes associated with trauma. The research is centred around the composition Crumble, which uses spatial sound to articulate fragmented mental states of individuals processing traumatic experiences. Through an analysis of the spatial placement of sound, gestural technologies and embodied interaction, the article demonstrates how these elements converge to create immersive environments that facilitate an understanding of trauma and memory. The findings highlight the role of embodied cognition in music performance, showing how Crumble’s integration of body, space and sound fosters audience connection through immersive spatialisation and gestural mediation. By integrating these practices, this study offers new insights into the therapeutic potential of immersive electroacoustic music as a medium for expressing complex emotional states. Combining embodied sound, gestural control and spatial audio promotes the exploration of space and memory, encourages personal agency and supports reintegration of body and mind, aligning with trauma-informed practices. It suggests avenues for future exploration in the intersection of music, psychology and immersive technologies.

This article explores biophilic (nature-centred) instrument design and its intersection with architecture and music. While the connection between these disciplines is often discussed figuratively, they are less often combined in practice. The Biophilic Instrument Pavilion (BIP), a site-responsive sound and light installation, serves as a model for such a collaboration using biophilic design as a unifying principle. This multidisciplinary project demonstrates spatialisation in ecological, sonic, visual and social contexts, offering insights into environmental instrument practices and collaborative creative processes.

While the relationship between space and openness has been explored in electroacoustic music since the 1960s, and contemporary composers have shown increasing interest in contingency, recent advancements in ambisonics, sound diffusion, and VR have granted composers greater control over the spatial image presented to the listener. This article revisits the discussion of space and openness through the lens of the author’s artistic practice and compositional experience, framed by new materialism, object-oriented philosophy and relational space theory. Through case studies from the author’s work, it examines spatialisation strategies that emphasise openness and the agency of sound materials. These strategies include sound source localisation, networks of family resemblances and parametric spatialisation, aiming to create an open sound experience that maintains identity while allowing agency for the sound material, the listener and the composer. In light of current global crises, partly driven by total control and exploitation, this article advocates for rethinking compositional practices to foster open sound experiences that reflect dynamic interactions between composer, material and listener.

The French poet Henri Chopin (1922–2008) was one of a generation of experimental young artists around 1955 who recognised new possibilities for innovation in the realm of expanded sonic assemblage that is at once viscerally embodied and highly mediated. The catalyst: the newfound availability and affordability of the portable reel-to-reel tape recorder. This article examines the relation between Chopin’s recorded ‘audiopoems’, which were built up over time by means of distortion, layering and looping, and the artist’s unusual approach to performing live with these recorded compositions. Through strategies of aural assemblage, including physically tampering with the tape, randomly cutting and splicing the reels, and accentuating feedback, Chopin circulated the voice in new ways, both intimate and collective. This article considers how he experimented with live performance as mediation par excellence, harmoniously juxtaposing live improvisation with the preceding mediation of sound recording technology, to create a ‘double extension’ that generated feedback as well as improvisatory spaces of encounter. This article examines several projects – both realised and speculative – as well as archival accounts of performances in the 1960s and 1970s to reflect on Chopin’s unwavering commitment to the very human scale, individual and collective, of mediated expression.

OTTOsonics is an open hardware platform developed by a team of engineers and composers, designed to prioritise affordability and flexibility, addressing the needs of a broader community interested in spatial audio. At its core, the platform features a custom-designed, high-quality 4-inch speaker with a 3D-printed cabinet, and an affordable multichannel power amplifier. It also offers a comprehensive set of mounting accessories and a knowledge base for producing and presenting spatial audio using open-source software. Over the past three years, OTTOsonics has been adopted by multiple cultural initiatives, universities, and audio enthusiasts, enabling the production of new spatial audio works across genres such as electroacoustic, experimental, and pop music. This article outlines the key decisions made throughout the project and presents the technical and artistic outcomes after three years of operation. We discuss the key features of an open platform for spatial audio and how our designs address these needs, as well as future directions for further projects and initiatives.

Today’s field of spatialisation in acousmatic music is very heterogeneous. Composers tend to develop their own technologies and techniques for spatialisation, and often the differences in how multichannel systems are addressed may influence both the musical appreciation and the future reproducibility of a piece. Moreover, the analytical and musicological perspectives of spatialisation are both fragmented and underdeveloped, with a lack of a shared framework for their study. This article focuses on these problems and tries to give a coherent and consistent view of spatialisation practice, from both technological and musicological perspectives. It will also act as a bedrock for the development of the musicological side of spatialisation, an aspect too often overlooked. ‘Spatial reduced listening’ and ‘spatial relativism’ will be introduced as analytical perspectives to shine a light on the composed spatial traits of sound, and not only on its spectromorphological and technological features.

In autumn 2023, the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Music and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute presented Shifting Center, an exhibition that explored sound through geological formations, architecture, and cultural artefacts. Using spatialisation techniques such as higher-order ambisonics and wave field synthesis, the works created immersive and disorienting auditory experiences. Curators Vic Brooks and Nida Ghouse framed ‘shifting centre’ as a metaphor for dislocation, evoking feminist and political theories of marginalised peripheries and centralised power. While the exhibition was conceptually and technically ambitious, we argue that the aurality of EMPAC itself – marked by abstraction, isolation and immersion – ultimately muted its decolonial potential. By tracing a lineage of spatial audio from the 1958 Philips Pavilion, we examine how architectural acoustics shape the possibilities of what can be heard in EMPAC, limiting the aural and more-than-aural reception of works presented there.