A Physically-Constrained Source Model For FDTD Acoustic Simulation

The Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) method is becoming increasingly popular for room acoustics simulation. Yet, the literature on grid excitation methods is relatively sparse, and source functions are traditionally implemented in a hard or additive form
using arbitrarily-shaped functions which do not necessarily obey the physical laws of sound generation. In this paper we formulate
a source function based on a small pulsating sphere model. A physically plausible method to inject a source signal into the grid
is derived from first principles, resulting in a source with a near-flat spectrum that does not scatter incoming waves. In the final
discrete-time formulation, the source signal is the result of passing a Gaussian pulse through a digital filter simulating the dynamics of the pulsating sphere, hence facilitating a physically correct means to design source functions that generate a prescribed sound field.

Acoustic Interculturalism: Listening to Performance

Acoustic Interculturalism is a study of the soundscapes of intercultural performance through the examination of sound's performativity. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, the book examines an akoumenological reception of sound to postulate the need for an acoustic knowing – an awareness of how sound shapes the intercultural experience.

Every Situation has its Rhythm: Acoustic Mimesis and Sonic Exoticism in Tambours Sur La Digue.

This article examines the soundscapes of Ariane Mnouchkine’s Tambours Sur La Digue and explores the concept of acoustic mimesis located in the performance as a dramaturgical strategy to create, aurally, an imagined Far East. In Tambours, mimesis is the performative principle exemplified by the presentation of the mise en scène, and most distinctly Mnouckine’s decision to adapt the Japanese performance tradition of Bunraku through a process of 'reversed' mimicry (in which human bodies simulate the wooden marionettes of the Japanese style). Mimesis pervades the acoustemologies of the performance as it is heard in the extracted sounds, styles, and rhythms of Asian musical modes and movements that consequently become dislocated from context; the sounds become imitated, iconicised and exoticised as sonic signatures as they reify the Orientalist spectacle. The 'oriental' soundscape, reverberating with exotic overtones, becomes the means by which the production creates an imaginary Orient – one in which the Orient Other is silenced, and is resounded only through the musical sensibilities of the Occidental Self.