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Denis Smalley describes the process of associating a sound with its source as source-bonding (Smalley, 1997). In the case of acousmatic sound events, source-bonding presupposes, not a definite source of sonic activation, but an indefinite source that remains unfixed, unverified, ambiguous, and semantically lacking. Because of this, says Smalley, 'Source bondings may be actual or imagined—in other words they can be constructs created by the listener' (Smalley, 1997). This paper looks at those areas in source-bonding where the absence of the source gives way to an acousmatic projection of sound that opens up a space for the imagination to form its own interpretations (Toop, 2010)—its own imagined source-bonding constructs—as explanations for those unexplained sonic experiences that listeners are exposed to. It discusses, also, how soundscape composition becomes a means for accentuating the acousmatic potential of sound, by measures of intentionality, in order to create sonic fictions that become real-world sonic scenarios in their own right, within the soundscape medium. To this extent, the acousmatic process becomes, as it were, acousmagic—a means of conjuring imagined source-bondings with phantasmagoric sources and the weird sonic manifestations found in folklore and legends, or the paranormal activities of hauntings and ghosts in actual sites of topographical or architectural interest. This paper will use the local site of Slains Castle to illustrate how "acousmagics" becomes a conduit for the material realisation of phantasmic alternatives to material sonic actualities that formulate and consolidate our platial recognition of Slains Castle as a montage of identities (both real and fictional) into one prevailing platial identity construct. It shows that, far from being a ruined edifice of collapsing brickwork, Slains is a material historical embodiment of actual and imagined forces, combined in layers of reality-building—a place that resonates with a multitude of presences that can be invoked and experienced, in creative terms, through the acousmatic/magic soundscape milieu.
Ali Rennie is a PhD student in sonic arts at the University of Aberdeen whose research explores the weird and the eerie in soundscape practices. He was initially an undergrade student at Aberdeen University in the 1990s and graduated with a degree in English Literature in 1996. He then studied for a PhD in Literature at the University of Edinburgh, focussing on the work of Robert Louis Stevenson in the context of structuralist and poststructuralist theories of narrative. Ali has published works of weird horror and fantasy fiction, including a novel (BleakWarrior) and short stories in a variety of anthologies and magazines, including Weird Tales magazine and the New Weird anthology. He is also known for his dark ambient music project, Ruptured World, and has released several albums with the renowned dark ambient record label, Cryo Chamber. In his other guises, Ali is a time-served painter and decorator and once worked as a web editor and copywriter for Ducati Motorcycles in Bologna, Italy, where he lived for ten years.
- Speaker
- Dr Ali Rennie
- Venue
- MacRobert Building, MR055
- Contact
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This seminar will also be available to attend via Microsoft Teams. Please contact Christina Ballico (christina.ballico@abdn.ac.uk) for the link to join via Microsoft Teams.