Site and Sound
Research Cluster
SITE & SOUND
– Sonic Spaces and Dramaturgies in Film and Performance –
The interdisciplinary research cluster brings together researchers from across the departmental research community for a joint investigation into the relationship of sound to the construction of architectures and dramaturgies in film, theatre and performance, through a mixture of shared readings, guest-led seminar events and workshops and individual development opportunities.
Sound culture studies is a field of growing importance in the arts and humanities. Challenging the hegemony of the visual in modernity, sound studies highlights the importance of the acoustic for processes of both creation and perception. Important sub-fields that are currently developing in the wake of an ‘acoustic turn’ are film sound studies, sound historiography, sound art and design and new music theatre. The researchers involved in this cluster all approach the issue of sound from distinct and mutually enriching perspectives: film analysis, film practice, performance historiography, theatre architecture and environmental dramaturgy, and new music theatre dramaturgy. Their shared interest in the sonic allows them to reframe and develop existing questions that are central to their research. In particular, the cluster will explore the following:
* How are film, theatre and performance engaging with the medium of sound? How does sound impact on filmic and theatrical dramaturgies? To what extent can one identify specific sonic dramaturgical approaches? How does sound relate to the creation and experience of space and spatial relations? How do sonic environments impact on perception?
* What might be a sonic historiography of performance art? In what way do past sounds of performance remain? How can the ‘lost sounds of performance art’ be recuperated? What role do venues and other sites play in such recuperation?
* What is the relationship between contemporary compositional practices and the creation of theatrical 'space' and spatiality in contemporary theatre performance? In what ways can postdramatic theory function as a self-reflexive, critical paradigm for the processes of musical composition?
* What are the new dramaturgical logics of postdramatic music theatre? What are new approaches to score and scoring?
Cluster Members:
Dr Gareth Llŷr Evans, Theatre and Performance Studies
Dr Piotr Woyicicki, Theatre and Performance Studies
associate members:
Dr Greg Bevan, Film and Media Practice
Dr Mike Brookes, Scenography
Dr Andrew Filmer, Theatre and Peformance Studies
Dr Dafydd Roberts, Research, Business and Innovation
PROGRAMME 2016-17
WORKSHOP 1: Angharad Davies, improvisation in sounds and sites
23 January 2017
