Repository: 'Sounding the Anthropocene: Site-Based Realisations of Ecocritical Aurality in the Wetlands and the Drylands'

Summary: 

This PhD project investigates the capacity of sound to measure and give voice to two contrasting terrestrial environments: the marshy bogs of the Northern Irish peatlands and the dune seas of the Rub’ al-Khali (Empty Quarter) desert in the United Arab Emirates. The subjects of focus are the sonics of two under-heard geophysical processes: peatland ebullition (subsurface bog bubbling of carbon dioxide and methane gas) and ‘singing' sand (a resonance effect in large sand dunes, caused by granular shear flow).

Through methods of field recording, ethnography, direct, embodied engagement with the sites, and creative compositional practice, my thesis proposes strategies for the ‘doing’ of sound, (or cultivating particular modes of sounding through practice), though which I produce new understandings on these two phenomena, examine audible relationalities between humans and their more-than-human environments, and reflect on how both sounding and refusing to sound environments shape relations of power, difference, and resistance. This thesis contributes directly to studies of ebullition and singing sand, and also speaks to a growing interest in the use of sonic methods to investigate environmental phenomena, as well as emerging discourse that assesses the interaction of music and sound with the ecological dilemmas of contemporary climate change.

Repository:

The doctoral submission consists of a written dissertation and a portfolio of original project materials, which are enclosed in this repository. The repository includes forty-six audio listening examples derived from my field recordings and ethnographic work, and four examples of my compositional practice in electroacoustic and acoustic mediums. Creative compositions are submitted as audio files, musical scores, and accompanying performance materials.

The audio materials in this repository follow the sequential order by which they feature in the written thesis, and are organised here in folders according to the three thesis chapters in which they are discussed:

Chapter 1: Sonic Encounters in the Peatlands (Northern Ireland)

18 audio listening examples derived from fieldwork, and the electroacoustic work ‘UNEARTHED’ 

Chapter 2: Sonic Encounters in the Desert (United Arab Emirates)

19 audio listening examples derived from fieldwork, and the electroacoustic work ‘Dune Song’ 

Chapter 3: Sounding Stratigraphy (Compositional practice); and Coda

6 audio listening examples derived from fieldwork and creative practice, and recordings of two compositions for acoustic ensembles and electronics: Soft Ground, for the Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble and The Sands, for the Crash Ensemble.

• Sub-folder: Scores and performance materials for Soft Ground and The Sands