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Embedded Soundscaping: Audio-reactive Instrument Design for Generative Sound and Music, Interactive Sound Installations, and Acoustic Experimentation

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Embedded Soundscaping

Scott Tooby

Embedded Soundscaping encompasses interdisciplinary research and a series of three sound installations realized with the Sonic Mirror: an interactive digital audio software instrument created for applications in generative sound and music composition, sound installation design, and acoustic experimentation. Capable of real-time digital audio recording, analysis, and synthesis, the instrument's functionality is open-ended and highly reconfigurable for both performative and autonomous contexts.

Embedded Soundscaping presents the Sonic Mirror in two primary functional modes: first, as an interactive instrument that automatically transforms the sounds of its environment into musical soundscapes; second, as an automated system for performing processes of recursive acoustic convolution to reveal the resonant frequencies of physical structures.

The latter of these functions has been applied in the context of an interdisciplinary research collaboration with engineering researchers of UC Santa Cruz's Dynamics, Autonomous, Surface Engineering, and Robotics (DANSER) Lab, to explore the feasibility of using acoustic means to analyze the structural health of digital cellular solids, a type of digital material. Created by researchers at NASA’s Coded Structures Lab, digital cellular solids are currently the strongest ultra-light fiber composite digital material available for applications in fields ranging from robotics to aerospace engineering.

Altogether, this work integrates elements from the fields of electronic music, acoustics, engineering, sound art, and soundscape ecology to define Embedded Soundscaping as a technical process and artistic practice for using technology to create interactive audio systems that interface with the soundscapes of different environments.

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