EXPLORING SOUND THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF SEAWATER, AND SEAWATER THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF SOUND
I’M INTERESTED IN THE CORRESPONDENCES BETWEEN THE THREE DIMENSIONAL, ALWAYS-IN-FLUX MEDIUMS OF SOUND AND THE OCEAN. THESE CARRY (OFTEN UNSEEN) AFFECT, THE TRACES OF WHICH LINGER WITHIN AND BETWEEN US (HUMAN AND OTHER-THAN-HUMAN FORMS)
My memories of spending 6 weeks in the coral triangle in my twenties, lives within me still. There is something playful about the embodied experience of being underwater which frees me from habitus, and allows me to think in ways which are not just intellectual. My latest article explores this underwater phenomenology, to theorise an aesthetics of spatial sound. I’m interested in projects which allow me to submerse myself, to collaborate with ocean scientists, and in those that mix sound and water. I’m particularly interested in giving voice to the issue of marine acoustic pollution, as well as to indigenous communities whose onto-epistempolgies are so needed at this time. In 2023 I co-organised a virtual seed conference for OMP.
Angela McArthur
Dr. Angela McArthur is an artist and academic, leading an interdisciplinary masters degree in spatial sound in the Dept of Anthropology at University College London. In 2020-21 she was in residence at NTNU Norway, creating spatial audio-visual works about ocean environments. In 2019 she was in residence at the Institut für Elektronische Musik (IEM) in Austria, making spatial sound installations with the IKO loudspeaker. Her research interests include spatial aesthetics, underrepresented and non-human (particularly marine) onto-epistemologies, and marine acoustic pollution. She champions diversity, and theorizes through practice.
CONTACT
Email : a.mcarthur@ucl.ac.uk