Sonorous phenomena are always on the verge of becoming something else. As it unfolds, sound constitutes spaces, mediates presence, articulates time. Furthermore, it may prompt emotions, generate awareness, organise patterns of behaviour or trigger a sense of belonging. As sound becomes audible, it is constantly being articulated within a series of adjacent circumstances.

The symposium Transformations of the Audible was a unique event that joined presentations by international scholars from the field of sound studies with artistic work by acclaimed composers and contributions from a diverse range of artists and researchers involved with sound in the arts. It focused on how cultural factors and material conditions play a role in shaping the ways in which we listen and how artistic practices are traversed by and simultaneously operate on them.

Transformations of the Audible took place between the 16th and the 18th May 2019 in the City of The Hague, organized as a joint initiative by the Leiden University Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, The Institute of Sonology at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague and the art organization West Den Haag. 

Through 8 different panels including 20 individual presentations and round-table discussions at the end of each panel, as well as 3 evening concerts and ongoing sound installations, the event tackled how modes of listening are informed by the role of technologies of sound manipulation and circulation, historical models of sound and the acoustic, cultural practices of musical expression, the relationship between language and music and the unfolding of sound within visual and theatrical contexts.

Online documentation

Video registration of the presentations, round tables, and a number of the concerts that took place in the Symposium can be accessed through this link. The booklet with all abstracts can be downloaded here

Participants

Full list of participants:

Peter Ablinger, Heloisa Amaral, Joanna Bailie, G. Douglas Barrett, Richard Barrett, Giuliano Bracci, François Bonnet, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Marcel Cobussen, Elizabeth Dobbin, Melissa van Drie, Ricarda Franzen, Raviv Ganchrow, Penelope Gouk, Thalia Hoffman, Eleni Kamma, Brian Kane, Julia Kursell, Yannis Kyriakides, Catherine Lamb, Sander van Maas, Matteo Marangoni, Martina Raponi, Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec, Linnea Semmerling, Suzan Tunca, Dafne Vicente-Sandoval and Jed Wentz.

As part of the symposium works by Peter Ablinger, Joanna Bailie, Catherine Lamb, Jakob Ullman and Simon Steen-Andersen were performed, by Heloisa Amaral, Dafne Vicente-Sandoval, Ensemble Modelo62 and Andreas Borregaard.

The symposium was curated and chaired by Gabriel Paiuk, faculty staff at the Institute of Sonology - Royal Consevratoire The Hague and PhD Candidate at ACPA.