Haptic Sensation and Instrumental Transgression

Anyone who has ever played a musical instrument will certify the development of a particular type of relationship between the instrument and the performer. This relationship goes beyond a convenient coupling that is optimized for sound production. Every musical instrument defines ways in which to be touched, felt, activated. Music performance is dependent on bodily involvement that goes beyond the auditory and the sense of hearing. This article investigates the role of haptic sensation in the context of the performer-instrument relationship and draws on the writings of Georges Bataille to illuminate a discussion of the erotic in performance.

Spatial Perception and Cognition in Multichannel Audio for Electroacoustic Music

Listeners experience electroacoustic music as full of significance and meaning, and they experience spatiality as one of the factors contributing to its meaningfulness. If we want to understand spatiality in electroacoustic music, we must understand how the listener’s mental processes give rise to the experience of meaning. In electroacoustic music as in everyday life, these mental processes unite the peripheral auditory system with human spatial cognition. In the discussion that follows we consider a range of the listener’s mental processes relating space and meaning from the perceptual attributes of spatial imagery to the spatial reference frames for places and navigation. When considering multichannel loudspeaker systems in particular, an important part of the discussion is focused on the distinctive and idiomatic ways in which this particular mode of sound production contributes to and situates meaning. These idiosyncrasies include the phenomenon of image dispersion, the important consequences of the precedence effect and the influence of source characteristics on spatial imagery. These are discussed in close relation to the practicalities of artistic practice and to the potential for artistic meaning experienced by the listener.

An Energy Conserving Finite Difference Scheme for Simulation of Collisions

Nonlinear phenomena play an essential role in the sound production process of many musical instruments. A common source of these effects is object collision, the numerical simulation of which is known to give rise to stability
issues. This paper presents a method to construct numerical schemes that conserve the total energy in simulations of one-mass systems involving collisions, with no conditions imposed on any of the physical or numerical parameters.
This facilitates the adaptation of numerical models to experimental data, and allows a more free parameter adjustment in sound synthesis explorations. The energy preservedness of the proposed method is tested and demonstrated though several examples, including a bouncing ball and a non-linear oscillator, and implications regarding the wider applicability are discussed.

The Sound of Becoming: Moving Towards a Virtual Music

In 1985 Jacques Attali proposed a new modality for music. He suggests that there be “not a new music, but a new way of making music... a radically new form of the insertion of music into communication” (Attali 134). What Attali foretold has become a firm reality in contemporary musical practice. One has only to look at any current musical activity to encounter work that relies heavily on real-time interaction and dynamic generation and/or modification of materials. But why is this ontologically different ‘mode of essentially interactive and transformative existence’ (Ziarek 195), this ‘new way of making music’, so attractive to contemporary artists? What is motivating artists to abandon a production model in favor of a model of real-time interactive exploration? I will argue that at the foundation of this new artistic ontology lies Deleuze’s concept of the virtual. It is a recognition of the virtual power of music, that music making can be an act of invention, a process where one can discover something never before experienced.

Creating a Circus of Words, Music, and Sound: From Roaratorio to Owenvarragh

This article documents the creation of a work by the authors based on a score written by the composer John Cage entitled 'Owenvarragh: A Belfast Circus on The Star Factory.' The article is part of a documentary portfolio in the journal which also includes a volume of the poetry created by Dowling in accordance with the instructions of the Cage score, and a series of documentary videos on the creation of the work and its first performance. Cage's score is based on his work 'Roaratorio: An Irish Circus on Finnegan's Wake' (1979) and it provides a set of detailed instructions for the musical realisation of a literary work. The article documents this first fully realised version of the score since Cage first produced 'Roaratorio' in 1979. The work, which was motivated by the Cage centenary year in 2012, musically realises Carson's book 'The Star Factory' (1998), a novelestic autobiography of Carson's Belfast childhood. The score required the creation of a fixed media piece based on over 300 field recordings of the sounds and places mentioned in the book, a volume of poetry created from the book which is recited to form the rhythmic spine of the work, and the arrangement of a performance including these two components along with live musical performance by the authors in collaboration with three other musicians under their direction, and a video installation created for the work. The piece has been performed three times: in association with the Sonorities 2012 Festival at Queen's University of Belfast (March 2012), at The Belfast Festival at Queen's (October 2012), and in the Rymer Auditoium of the University of York (June 2013).

Additional information:

The work which the article documents was conceived by Monaghan and Dowling, and the project was initiated by Monaghan after a she received a student prize to support its development and first performance. Elements of the project will be included in her PhD dissertation for which Dowling is a supervisor. Monaghan created the fixed media piece based on over 300 field recordings, the largest single aspect of realising Cage's score. Dowling was responsible for initiating the collaboration with Ciaran Carson, and for two other components: the creation of a volume of poetry derived from the literary work which is recited in the performance, and the creation of and supervision of the technical work on a video which accompanies the piece. The co-authors consulted closely during the work on these large components from May 2011 until March 2012 when the first performance took place. The co-authors also shared in numerous other artistic and organisational aspects of the production, including the arrangement and performnance of the music, musical direction to other performers, and marketing.

Substance P production by human dental pulp fibroblasts

The inflammatory response to pulpal injury or infection has major clinical significance. Neurogenic inflammation describes the local release of neuropeptides, notably substance P (SP), from afferent neurones, and may play a role in the pathogenesis of pulpal disease. The fibroblast is the most numerous cell type in the dental pulp and recent work has suggested that it is involved in the inflammatory response. Objectives: The aims of the study were to determine whether pulp fibroblasts could produce SP, and to investigate the expression of the SP receptor, NK-1, by these cells. Methods: Primary pulp fibroblast cell populations were isolated by enzymatic digestion from non-carious teeth extracted for orthodontic reasons. Whole pulp tissue was obtained from freshly extracted sound (n=35) and carious (n=39) teeth. Expression of SP and NK-1 mRNA was determined by RT-PCR. The effects of interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) on SP and NK-1 expression were also determined. The presence of NK-1 on fibroblast cell membranes was established by western blotting. The effects of the cytokines on each parameter were analysed by ANOVA. Radioimmunoassay (RIA) was carried out to quantify SP expression by pulp fibroblasts and in whole pulp tissue. Results: SP was expressed by pulpal fibroblasts both at the mRNA level and the protein level. In addition, NK-1 was detected in fibroblast cultures at the mRNA level and appeared as a double band on western blots of membrane extracts. IL-1β and TGF-β1 significantly stimulated the expression of SP and NK-1. SP levels were significantly greater (p<0.05) in carious compared to sound teeth. Conclusion: Pulp fibroblasts are capable of synthesising and secreting SP, as well as expressing the SP receptor, NK-1. These findings suggest that pulp fibroblasts play a role in neurogenic inflammation in pulpal disease. (Supported by the European Society of Endodontology.)

Reassembled, Slightly Askew:Composition & Sound Design

Reassembled, Slightly Askew is an autobiographical, immersive audio-based artwork based on Shannon Sickels’ experience of falling critically ill with a rare brain infection and her journey of rehabilitation with an acquired brain injury. Audience members experience Reassembled individually, listening to the audio via headphones while lying on a bed. The piece makes use of binaural microphone technology and spatial sound design techniques, causing listeners to feel they are inside Shannon’s head, viscerally experiencing her descent into coma, brain surgeries, early days in the hospital, and re-integration into the world with a hidden disability. It is a new kind of storytelling, never done before about this topic, that places the listener safely in the first-person perspective with the aim of increasing empathy and understanding. Reassembled… was made through a 5-year collaboration with an interdisciplinary team of artists led by Shannon Sickels (writer & performer), Paul Stapleton (composer & sound designer), Anna Newell (director), Hanna Slattne (dramaturgy), Stevie Prickett (choreography), and Shannon’s consultant neurosurgeon and head injury nurse. It’s development and production has been made possible with the support of a Wellcome Trust Arts Award, the Arts Council NI, Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast's Metropolitan Arts Centre, and grants from the Arts & Disability Award Ireland scheme. In its 2015 premiere year, Reassembled had 99 shows across Northern Ireland, including at the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival (the MAC, Belfast) and BOUNCE Arts & Disability Forum Festival (Lyric Theatre, Belfast). It was awarded 5 stars in the Stage, a Hospital Club h100 Theatre & Performance Award, and been shared at medical conferences and trainings across the UK. It continues to be presented in diverse artistic and educational contexts, including as part of A Nation’s Theatre Festival in 2016 at Battersea Arts Centre in London where it was given 4 star reviews in the Guardian, Time Out London and the Evening Standard. "A real-life ordeal, captured by a daring, disorientating artistic collaboration, which works brilliantly on so many levels…It should be available on prescription.” — The Stage ★★★★★ www.reassembled.co.uk Audio clips and documentary footage available here: http://www.paulstapleton.net/portfolio/reassembled-slightly-askew