Contact Details

Telephone

work +44 (0)1224 274618

Email

s.kim@abdn.ac.uk

Address

The University of Aberdeen MR008 School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture, University of Aberdeen MacRobert Building King's College Aberdeen AB24 5UA

Web Links

http://www.reddoorsound.com

Web Links

Humming (The Sound of Study), Bloomsbury, 2018

Humming is a ubiquitous and mundane act many of us perform. The fact that we often hum to ourselves, to family members, or to close friends suggests that humming is a personal, intimate act. It can also be a powerful way in which people open up to others and share collective memories. In religious settings such as Tibetan chanting, humming offers a mesmerising sonic experience. Then there are hums that resound regardless of human activity, such as the hums of impersonal objects and man-made or natural phenomena.

The first sound studies book to explores the topic of humming, Humming offers a unique examination of the polarising categories of hums, from hums that are performed only to oneself, that are exercised in religious practice, that claim healing, and that resonate with our bodies, to hums that can drive people to madness, that emanate from cities and towns, and that resound in the universe. By acknowledging the quirkiness of hums within the established discourse in sound studies, Humming takes a truly interdisciplinary view on this familiar yet less-trodden sonic concept in sound studies.

Hasla - Suk-Jun Kim (Berliner Künstlerprogramme des DAAD; Kerher)

»I was in this land called Hasla. A far-off land in which everything seemed familiar and yet oddly alien; a place you have never traveled to and yet which in a strange way is similar to every city you’ve ever visited, which – no sooner did you arrive – you already left again. At least that’s how I remember it. But how can I tell of a land that doesn’t exist?«
Hasla consists of electroacoustic compositions that are inspired by a poetry of localization and spatialization of sound. Calmly and transparently, these sounds formulate questions whose answers are delayed, in a kind of tonal dream logic that lends the pieces their tension. Suk-Jun Kim was a guest of the Artists-in-Berlin Program of the DAAD in 2009 / 10.

Biography

A Korean Composer whose main output is electroacoustic music, Suk-Jun Kim’s musicfocuses mainly on the sense of places that are fantastic, imaginary, magical, and realistic, where listeners can visit, stop by, and dwell on. His music has received a number of international awards: Métamorphoses (Biennale Acousmatic Composition Competition in Belgium: 2000 & 2008), Regional Composition Prize at 2008 ICMC in Belfast, Concurso International de Música Electroacústica Såo Paulo (CIMESP: 2007), Bourges International Competition (2001), ASCAP/SEAMUS Student Commission Competition (2001) as well as mentions and finalists in MUSICA VIVA (2005) and MUSICA NOVA (2002 & 2005). Kim also received commissions from the 2006 World Cup in Germany (2006), Bourges commissions (2002 & 2006), SpACE-Net in UK (2007), QUB Silver Collection Soundscape Commission from Belfast (2007), and ASCAP/SEAMUS (2001) and has been a resident composer at Bourges (2004, 2007, 2009), Visby International Centre for Composer, Sweden (2007), Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida (2007), MacDowell Colony, New Hampshire (2008), Musiques & Recherches in Ohain, Belgium (2009), and Artists-in-Berlin, DAAD, Germany (2009). Kim’s music has been published by ICMC, IMEB, and SEAMUS, and M&R. In 2011, Kim, with the support of DAAD, published Hasla, a book/DVD which catalogs, and is part of the Hasla Project. Hasla includes texts by Denis Smalley, Folkmar Hein, and Julia Schröder, and a short story by Kim. The accompanied DVD contains compositions and documentations of installations. Kim's second book, Humming, will be published in 2018 by Bloomsbury.

Research Interests

• Humming
• Immersive sound for VR/AR/XR/MR
• Aurality of scientific epistemologies
• Audienceship in the twenty-first century
• Sound studies
• Sound and knowing
• Electroacoustic music
• Sound art

Teaching Responsibilities

• MU1538 Digital Musicianship
• MU3050 Music and Brain
• MU3523 Theory and Practice of Experimental Music
• MU4504/5506 Voice and the Machine
• MU5009 A Survey of Sonic Arts
• MU5010 Creative Coding and Technology
• MU5507 Sound Design and Processing
• MU4507/5509 Sound Design for Film and New Media

Admin Responsibilities

• Postgraduate Programme Coordinator in Music
• MMus in Sonic Arts Programme Director
• REF Lead (UoA 33)
• University Senate Member

Awards and Prizes

• First Prize, 28^th Int. Competition of Electroacoustic Music and Sonic/ Bourges, France; Trivium A, 1^st Category (2001)
• First Prize, Concurso International de Música Electroacústica de Såo Paulo, Brazil (CIMESP) (2007)
• First Prize, 5^th Biennial Acousmatic Composition Competition in Brussels, Belgium (2008)
• Second Prize, ASCAP/SEAMUS Student Commission Competition, USA(2001)
• Public Awards, 1^st Biennial Acousmatic Composition Competition in Brussels, Belgium (2001)
• Regional Composition Prize, ICMC in Belfast, Northern Ireland (2008)
• Mention, 6^th MUSICA VIVA International Electroacoustic Music Composition Competition, Portugal (2005)
• Music Selection on CD, ICMC Conference Music CD in Barcelona, Spain (2005) & SEAMUS CD (2005) 
• Finalist, Musica Nova International Electroacoustic Music Composition Competition (2002 & 2005); 4^th Biennial Acousmatic Composition Competition in Belgium (2006); 35^th Int. Competition of Electroacoustic Music and Sonic/ Bourges, Trivium A, 2^nd category (2008)

Publications 

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