Artistic research's value lies in holding space for the contradictory, for knowledge in motion, for practices that are kept together by forces too large and fluid to separate and particularly for research that gathers knowledges that are not just written about but done. This thesis leans into the power of this kind of research by presenting an artistic practice that is deeply rooted in bodily experience, moving freely between the realms of affect, emotion and sensation to investigate what sound can do when it is felt.  

I showcase here twelve instances of sonic practice that investigate what can be done with intensities felt in the body and in what conditions: some works are collaborative, others not; some centre on vocal improvisations, others only use voice as part of the process but not the outcome; some use objects, props and things, others focus on space and location; in some the focus is zoned in on a singular thing, in others it’s wide open. This variety of approaches is a testament to the restlessness of the enquiry - a constant motion between diverse approaches that help build the specifics of the practice by testing its limits in many different circumstances.  

The Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns started within the first six months of this PhD. This led me to develop mitigations strategies that made up for the restrictions on working in person with other musicians. One of these strategies was to work creatively with my own voice. At this point I had an approximate ten year break from using my voice performatively and limited experience in using it in emergent or improvisational ways. Over the five years of this PhD, voice became an essential method of gaining sensory precision and embodied awareness that deepened in scope and function. I ultimately settled on conceiving of it as a somatic tool for sensing myself and the context I am part of. 

Voice also drew to the foreground the neurodivergent specifics of my body. It taught me to listen to impulses that pull it in extreme directions, to give into self-soothing repetitions or absent mumblings, to make manifest the seemingly inconsequential elements of background experience. All of these strategies lean into my ADHD body's bio-rhythm and its specific sensoriality. This determines a bottom-up approach that worked with emergent knowledge from within my neurodivergent body. I used this knowledge to develop neurodivergent compositional strategies, that I believe have the potential to diversify both the field of composition as well as neurodivergent research more broadly. 

To facilitate the practice of being with in the way that this thesis is experienced, I present the artistic works in this rich-media webpage format saturated with audio and video material. I also experiment with types of analysis beyond the written form, using multimedia presentations or audio and video recordings of historical reflections from within the processes of making. I use a range of writing styles that are generally differentiated by colour and formatting—these styles can sometimes be academic, other times informal or poetic, their juxtapositions or contradictions mirroring the erratic that is manifested in practice. 

I structure the thesis in four sections: ways in, thinking, doing and ways out. 

Needless to say that the thinking and the doing were always in conversation during the research process in what Smith and Dean (2009) call an iterative cyclic web. This cycle manifested as an iterative movement between theory, practice and infusions from different experiences and people.

The decision to frontload the thinking is done pragmatically so that its high density can linger and inform the experience of the practice. This order (as well as the entire order of the PhD) can be dis-ordered by following the many hyperlinks available that can fracture its linearity inviting different possibilities of engagement that account for momentary desires. (In-line hyperlinked text opens in a new page, while top and bottom navigators open in the same page.)

Section 1. Ways in details the specifics of the erratic and erotic, expands on the kind of body that does the research, unpacks why I consider this sonic practice composition and traces the role of the voice. 

Section 2. Thinking draws on a variety of fields including feminism, affect and atmosphere studies and pragmatic philosophy. It does so with the passion of the sensor eager to make its sensations more vivid and alive for the reader and to contextualise the journey I've been through. Many of these theories accompanied me throughout the development of the artistic works. In this section I celebrate their effects on and resonances with my artistic practice. 

Section 3. Doing is the most comprehensive section that contains all of the instances of practice with many quotes, reflections, audio-visual material, historical notes and other creative strategies that unpack the doing. Beyond the knowledge inherent in the works, there are some meta-narratives that come out of the chronology of the practice and some extra inter-connections that emerged post-factum that I support to be seen by arranging the works into three separate containers (Container One. At a distance from you, Container Two. Risking Encounters, Designing the context and Container Three. With Others, With Help, all nested inside section three. 

The last section, Ways out briefly outlines how I see all this work now and lays out some directions for future work.