Sonic Explorations in Divergent Landscapes

This document presents a portfolio of ten composition projects produced between September 2010 and June 2014 created by composer Jon Hughes working in collaboration with a number of artists and researchers. Each individual chapter deals with a separate project, and is accompanied by a Data Drive presented alongside the text as an integral part of the submission. This contains audio, video and other supplementary material. There is also an introductory essay, Chapter 1: Footprints and Philosophy: Sonic Explorations in Divergent Landscapes, designed to set the composition portfolio in context.

Although contrasting in terms of content and media, the ten works presented here share a number of common conceptual threads. They all involve the use of sound to reveal, uncover, communicate, and to map hidden aspects of the subject matter explored with each individual project, whether that be mathematical principles (Phase Revival), the shared experience of landscape (Terrarium, Hydrology, Another Place), principles from evolutionary biology (Transmission), or the rich complexity of shared acoustic space (A Dip in the Lake).

A further related common thread is the use of large-scale ambisonic speaker arrays (Terrarium, A Dip in the Lake, Phase Revival, Sonic Horizons, Hydrology). This gave production teams the ability to create fully immersive audio/visual environments in which hidden themes and concepts referred to above could be better communicated. Working together with fellow collaborators, it thus became possible to create cultural interventions in the form of portable, immersive public spaces.

Other themes explored in the portfolio include the use of found sound, and the exploration of landscape narrative. Found sound is used extensively, in combination with instrumental and vocal material.