The Sound Horizon: multilayered composition for headphones and loudspeakers
(2025)
author(s): Alam Hernández / Blarewolf
published in: KC Research Portal
Music is bound to space; music happens in a space. There cannot be music without space, still, the vast majority of music throughout history has been mainly focused on "what happens when" rather than "what happens when and where.”
Today, with the advent of Virtual Reality, Dolby Atmos, binaural recording, and surround systems musicians and listeners are developing a more refined sensitivity and creativity toward sound localisation and spatialisation. Space is gradually attaining greater significance in the way we perceive and conceptualise music. Moreover, the introduction of headphones into the audio market substantially affected the way we perceive music today.
The present work describes the creative process and the results of two electronic music pieces for speakers and headphones which were composed for exploring the perceptual thresholds in which musical materials are perceived as connected or disconnected from each other.
I hope this work ignites curiosity in the reader, inspires creation, and motivates reflection on the meaning of space, connection, and isolation.
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Listening to / in Public Space
(2024)
author(s): Justin Bennett
published in: KC Research Portal
As an artist working often with audio walks I often have the nagging thought: does using headphones to present sound in public space immerse the listener in a bubble, separating them from their surroundings?
This research looks at the form of the audio walk and the possibilities of using binaural recording, narrative devices and locative media to prioritise engagement with the environment.
In addition it documents the re-activation of an older work of mine in a app using geo-location and it collects documentation of a number of walk-pieces including scripts, audio files, maps and other background information.
Lectorate Music, Education and Society, Koninklijk Conservatorium, Den Haag. 2023-24
