Research Project (Route B) – Exploring Ambient Worlds, Approaching Sound as a Painting

To approach my research project, I referenced back to most of my previous work where I have strived for a general ambient nature. With this, I want to dive into the core of what worlds can be held within sound. Ambient sound & music harnesses environmental elements and abstracts them in a way that I find fascinating and I wish to explore more.Though I don’t have a defined question generated for this project yet, this is the direction I wish to move in. It would start as an intensive research project behind the concept of ambience and world-building through sound. Exploring the reality of what that might sound like in its’ various fields, and then brought to a point of abstraction. For myself that point of abstraction is stepping away from technological aspects of sound and approaching sound as a painting. How can sound be gestural, like paint? How can it create landscapes and portraits? Understanding the foundation of sonic world building and the stories told with it, and exploring where it can begin to abstract itself from what we know as reality, and become something else. What key elements are present in these sonic environments? What can begin to define a sonic world? 

This topic itself will touch base in various areas of my own practice. The idea of building environments through sound can be found in many different fields that I wish to have my hand in. (film, music, VR, gaming, etc.) Having this research with me, I can use this information to help ease the door open in these other areas. In my mind, I want to rely on most sources I can get for this topic. (my own examples, spoken word, field recordings, music, etc). Therefore Route B sounds the most approachable to me, being able to explore this topic audibly and talking through my research and experimentations. In organizing this project, for the earlier sections, I want to explore what this topic defines itself as (where it is found, how it came about, and provide its research and processes). In the later sections, I wish to explore the abstracted side of it and explore the idea of what a sonic painting might sound like and provide my own commentary on what I will attempt to create.

I still think I need to narrow down my topic a bit but, with this topic I feel like I have my paths of execution for stand-alone pieces of work. For example, I am fully prepared to create paintings of my own alongside these sonic pieces of work to have a visual understanding of my interpretation. Another project idea that I plan to use for my portfolio piece is a “synth quilt”. I have been researching into electromagnetic paint, where, wherever the paint is touching can become a sensor for sound when attached to the correct hardware. With this, I wish to collaborate with my brother and help him sew a quilt where I can screenprint/paint the panels with the paint and create a “synth quilt” by attaching my own sounds/samples. (this would be an eta of May 2023 to learn the hardware and execute physically) These are just a few project ideas I have had thus far, but in these small proposals, I can reference back to this research topic and easily work utilize it in my own practice.