Abstract

Keywords:
Place, technology, music, sonic arts, virtual reality, embodiment

This paper explores two complementary questions – How has the use of technology in music and sonic practice helped to enrich our understanding of place, and how might four theoretical frameworks of place developed by Bachelard, Lefebvre, Deleuze and Guattari, and Augé help contextualize such an aesthetic investigation. The paper examines a range of creative work through the lens of these frameworks to provide an overview of various ways in which questions of place have been aestheticized. The paper concludes by considering how technology offers new ways of casting questions about the human experience of place which ultimately enrich and enhance our understanding.

• David Kim-Boyle is an Australian composer and researcher whose creative practice explores the creative affordances of non-linear processes through their visualization in real-time, generative graphic scores. His recent research has focused on musical applications of AR/VR and the immersive visualization of complex, interactive data sets for musical performance. Recent projects have included work for the ELISION ensemble with a 3D holographic score displayed on the Microsoft HoloLens, and a VR work for the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, premiered in 2022, featuring an immersive score generated from Instagram data. His research has been regularly presented in leading forums for new music technology research including the International Computer Music Conference, the Digital Audio FX Conference, SMC, TENOR, JIM, and NIME and published in journals such as Contemporary Music Review, Organised Sound, Leonardo Music Journal, Tempo, and Digital Creativity. He has been a guest artist at some of the world’s leading computer music research facilities including ZKM (Karlsruhe), SARC (Belfast), STEIM (Amsterdam), and IRCAM (Paris) and is currently the Technology Manager at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (The University of Sydney).