CISA–I am confused! Dissertation Proposal
Well first of all, I am still not sure what I would be interested in doing for my third year. I think I am a bit confused to define my sound interest. I only know sound art this “thing” when I came to London. I think sound art is very unique in China, even though I lived in shanghai, a big city. I have no idea about what really is. What my last year tutor thought of me, is more like “pretty aesthetic” , I compose/create stuffs more from a fine art background and something more ‘pretty’ without something more academic.
I would think I am interested in doing and investigating how sound would be immersive in theatre.
This is currently what I am working on with Jose:
The Village – Site-Specific, Immersive Theatre in Soho & Chinatown
The Village was a multi-location immersive theatre piece devised and staged by Persona Collective inside Soho & Chinatown. The live shows took place from 30th March until 19th April 2023. This project celebrates the diversity & tolerance of Soho’s local community & indie businesses with a narrative based on real voices and in real unique locations in the local area. This projects was supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England
The audience found themselves stepping into an intimate journey across multiple secret locations throughout Soho & Chinatown; weaving through hidden passageways. Their journey was a multi-sensory experience – somewhere between fiction and reality. Each group of audience were following one character’s story, whilst witnessing threads of multiple narratives throughout their journey. Audience members described the experience as “being immersed inside of a film” or as “hyper-real, it was never clear whether something was reality or an artistic construct”.
Through out the project we worked closely with the LGBTQ+ communities and Soho’s local businesses & residents. Together we co-created a multi-location immersive theatre & build a set/installation in a gallery, all in Soho.
https://www.personacollective.co.uk/the-village
I am also interested in recreate classical music and maybe build some some electronic-acoustic music with musicians. I want to find out the boundary between ‘sleepy classical music’ and one beat ‘electronic music’.
I quite like a lot of things going on…polyphonically
- I want to write about the comparison of electronic sounds and acoustic sounds playing the same melodies. It is not really gonna be something related to the virtual instrument. Maybe I could use a modular synth or I could build up something in max to achieve that. I would like to to interview people and hear them thoughts on which version they would prefer. I think both acoustic sounds and electronic sounds could be hurtful in many ways depending on their exaggerate frequencies. Some people are debating that acoustic sounds are much more prettier but I think instruments like water phone, double base could be taken into consideration.
- I am also interested in how sound could be immersive into drama and theatres. I think “the burnt city” is a very amazing example. Though they did not spend a lot of time on sound creation, instead, they used a lot of pre-made sounds.
I think I want to make something big like a sound exhibition–only sound and things could be touched sonically.
Canqi is an interior designer and we were collaborating on this project previously. His dream is also to make a immersive theatre.(the previous version I made for his robotic arm project)
I prefer the idea on interviewing and watching movies in doing research. I think reading books and academic essays are as significant as them. We need to be open to hear the people who are alive as well. My previous audio paper I quite like it was focusing on food. I used interview a lot.