Royal College of Arts

Rosie Staley and Rosie Boxall

Rosie Ann Boxall is a current first year Information Experience Design student at the Royal College of Art. She has a focus on sound design, creating ambisonic soundscapes and interactive sound devices. Previously she has worked in collaboration with The Collection in Lincoln and a community-based project to teach media literacy to primary school children through producing radio shows. Rosie’s focuses on English heritage and education through sound for both children and adults. This is her first collaboration with Rosie Staley.

Rosie Staley comes from a musical background and is working on writing and releasing new music alongside studying Sound Design at the RCA. Previously, Rosie’s music has been featured at the Tate Britain as part of Wired4music's London Takeover and her debut single was played by BBC Introducing Northampton. Her current interests lie in researching the potential of sound and music to transform communities and encourage social engagement.

C(h)oral

C(h)oral is an interactive coral reef inspired by the recent research into the use of sound to repopulate and consequently revitalise dying reefs. The project aims to highlight the impact of human interaction, both positive and negative, on the marine environment. 

Yiming Yang

 

Yiming Yang is an experimental artist. She’s currently studying at the Royal College of Art and in 2020 she will earn an MA in Information Experience Design. Her work titled Barbie Nonsense Instrument, a self-sustained, unpredictable, interactive musical instrument was featured at Apple Store Regent Street. Yiming’s work pushes forward the horizons of today’s post Anthropocene visions, where utopia and dystopia clash in uncertainty.

Barbie Nonsense Instrument

Barbie Nonsense Instrument is a self-sustained, unpredictable, interactive musical instrument. The general idea is to explore unusual compositional and performative sonic ideas by manipulating such a unique instrument.

It’s a cultural challenge for the user — because this installation is not for passive viewers but for active users — who can’t help but move Barbie’s body parts and generate different sounds.

The modification of the Barbie into a sonic cybertoy gives her a new play purpose for adults and kids alike. The otherwise lifeless Barbie gains a soul that is expressed through interactive sonic experimentation. This way, it is easier for the person that is playing to get attracted and attached to her. Her hacked body, with its prosthetic parts and bionic organs, adds to this unique play experience while hinting at the future of post humanity.

Leon Hapka

 

Leon Hapka is a multidisciplinary designer and new media artist who straddles the line between the creative and the scientific. 

Sonic Geometry

An attempt to translate geometric shapes into sound by using mathematical interpretations of various geometric forms into equivalent frequencies that can be sonically represented.  This investigation of the relationship between sound / frequencies and geometry / physical form gives a possibility to explore the importance and meaning of sonic harmony and how visual study of sonic harmony and disharmony can help us to understand it better.

Zhao Jiajing

 

Zhao Jiajing is a musician and sound artist from Beijing China, currently based in London, UK.

Zhao Jiajing's artistic practices focus on storytelling and world-building with sonic devices. His field of interest lies in social issues about science exploration, the climate crisis, digital cultures, and the capitalist society. As a sound designer, he has collaborated with performers, filmmakers, ceramic artists, fashion artists, computing technologists to develop various installations, videos, performances, and sound pieces.

Post-Anthropocene Aquarium

The Post-Anthropocene Aquarium Project is a series of interactive sound installations by Jiajing Zhao, inspiring people to rethink about their impact on the earth and their positions in nature.

The Anthropocene is a term, suggested by scientists in the 21st century, indicating geological epoch beginning from the genesis of human impact on the in geology and ecosystems of the earth. The work features the sound and specimen of typical creatures that have survived and evolved through the Anthropocene. These creatures have evolved themselves to prevent people's disturbance or rather, take advantage and learn from human activities. In particular, the presented artworks chiefly reflect humans' sonic colonisation of the ocean from a "post-human" perspective.

The sound interaction is programmed with Max Msp, controlled by Arduino with external sensors. The sounds are sampled from the ocean and been re-assembled and processed with digital techniques. 

Hengshi Kang

 

Hengshi Kang is a digital artist/designer/developer whose work explores a wide spectrum of media including motion graphic, sound/graphic interactive installation, AR/VR and AI. His aim is transforming emerging technologies into innovative experiences. He collaborated with Microsoft, Victoria and Albert Museum, BBC and Apple.

Sound co-creation with machine learning agents

It’s part of my working-in-progress project about research of Human-AI interaction.

It’s a machine learning agents-based sound generation program. Unlike other machine learning algorithms that generate sound directly like Wavenet or Magenta, It use machine learning agents which were trained to complete simple tasks in Unity3D environment.

It used analogy of how people interact with biological systems like feeding pigeons or goldfish. In this project audience will play with life-like artificial intelligence.

 

Dave Shulman

 

Dave Shulman is a musician, artist and composer. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 2005 where he studied jazz saxophone, clarinet and composition. He has since continued on a journey of creative exploration, study and performance and has developed an art practise encompassing drawing and sculpture in parallel to his music.

  Well known as a versatile improvisor across various music scenes, he has long been fascinated by the interconnectedness of different musical genres and art forms, exploring similarities as well as differences in the multitude of different creative ‘languages' he has found himself to be working with.

 

Improvisatorially friendly

This work is an electroacoustic composition with an emphasis on group improvisation, involving performers from different backgrounds playing conventional and non-conventional instruments, including but not limited to a saxophone and a digital drawing tablet acting as a polyphonic sound controlling device.  The piece will incorporate an algorithmically generated score/sequence of procedural instructions that may be auditory as well as visual and whose interpretation will depend on the affordances of the various music/sound making devices used and the background of the performers. It can be seen as a playful form of research delving into a better understanding of human interactions across difference as well as human/non-human interactions through the medium of sound/music making.

 Shiyou Peng, Shuang Zhou, Xiaoxuan Li 

We are group of student from Digital Direction in Royal College of Art. In the group there are three of us, Shiyou Peng, Shuang Zhou and Xiaoxuan Li.

We are all interest in the immersive experience creating different feeling with sound and how human body react to that. We want to combine different digital technical like AR ,VR and coding to solve problems and tell story in a more diverse way.

Float

This project is to explore wind as a sound format and how sound of wind relate to human feelings, and the relationship between human and nature.

In Japanese philosophy, wind represents things that grow and enjoy freedom of movement, it also been seen as representing human mind, as the person expand its knowledge and experiences.

This work is displaced with in VR with sound. Inside, audience will experience abstract moving images which audience can relax and enjoying a free floating mind experience.

The sound is a mix of real-world recording and generated sound based on wind data from the location. Also, based on different location, other noise involve to created an immersive space.

 

 Philip Quiza

 

Phillip is a designer and software engineer interested in experimenting and pushing the interfaces between humans and computers.

Code Comparison

One day as an undergraduate, my professor and I were debugging a program and he remarked that in the past he could infer a program's state using the computer's clicking noises. These days computers are silent and the tools programmers use exclusively visual. Code Companion is a tool that reveals and builds intuition about a program's structure through a sonified experience. Each loop iteration increases the frequency of a tone, and each function call increases its pitch.

 

 Lucy Papadopoulos

Background in Fine Art with a placement in Theoretical Physics in 2016. Using an inter-disciplinary and multi-media approach, I create multi-sensory installations using light, sound and sculpture which try to reposition our sense of space using interactive systems. This year I have been working with sound as a suggestion of the inconceivable through its invisible dynamic, drawing on ideas in neuroscience, philosophy and the paradoxes of quantum physics. A recent sound experiment was thinking about the inaudible in both a political and philosophical sense, working with field recordings from protests.

Demo

An exploration into the subtleties of experience and communication through the participation of audience - their synchronous, resonant experience - and the use of corporeal resonance itself. Pulling from research into why we have gathered around bass culturally in early and modern club and rave culture and the use of drum circles in various political and ceremonial contexts, this is part of a further experiment to explore how sonorous or percussive sound might enhance our non-verbal perceptual capacities of each other and our environment. 

Nirav Beni

 

I see myself as someone that is interested in the field that is located at the intersection of art and technology. New media based art has the ability to merge the aesthetics and the sublime, with technologies of the present and future, allowing for advanced methods of creation and narrative telling. By incorporating mediums and concepts such as motion tracking, machine learning and AI we can further develop audio and visual based interactions or installations, by creating immersive, dynamic or generative forms of itself. I want my works to touch on themes surrounding the sublime, human consciousness and the interactions between man and machine. My goal is to be able to create phenomenological experiences that create shared feelings of wonder or intrigue with the real as well as the intangible.

 

Sound of Movement

My project is an experimental visual and sonic capturing of movement as a soundscape. The idea of kineticism, continuous movement and flux seen in public transportation, shopping queues and general London commuting inspired me to create a fairly simple yet interactive real time audio-visual experience that tracks users and creates sounds corresponding to this movement based soundscape. Clicks, card swipes, white noise, beeps, and motion related sounds are triggered by motion. This live installation is set up as a simple projection output with an input video capture sensor, connected to an audio system. The installation aims to create an appreciation for the sublime beauty in the constantly changing and the dynamic systems that are present around us, linking the various technologies that drive the interactions between us and the machines.

  

Dimitris Menexopoulos

Menex (a.k.a. Dimitris Menexopoulos) is a versatile composer, sound designer, audio technologist and multi-instrumentalist from Thessaloniki, Greece. Having an academic background in Geoscience, Electronic Production and Design, he often draws elements from a wide spectrum in the fields of Art and Science to carry out his work. He has two solo albums under his name (Phenomena - 2014, Perpetuum Mobile - 2017), a virtual reality video game soundtrack (The Village - 2019) and various performances internationally. His collaborations include electronic musician Robert Rich (Vestiges - 2016), director Shekhar Kapur (Brides of the Well - 2018) and film composer George Kallis (Cliffs of Freedom - 2019) among others. He is currently based in London, UK.

 Demo

Homo Informis (Latin: "Homo" = a human being, a person, "Informis" = formless, shapeless) is an electronic composition and performance system in development that sonifies real-time video and uses one's brainwave stream to shape the sound further. This creative process results in an audiovisual experience that is dictated by both internal and external human body data and their surroundings. One or many participants can affect the sonic outcome simultaneously, as their video captured presence and movement shape the generated audio waveform that is modulated by the main operator's brain activity.

Susan Atwill, Rahul Pradhan, Arthur Wilson

 

Arthur Wilson is an audio artist, electronic musician and audio interaction designer exploring how experimenting with and reimagining technologies can allow for new, meaningful experiences and thinking. Since late 2019, Arthur has been the Head of Design Experience Thinking and Research Team (HDETRT) at Ocean Object Occlusion Academy House (OOOAH).

 

Rahul Pradhan is an artist embarking on an MA in Sound Design at the Royal College of Art. Driven by the existential dimension of visions, symbolism and poetry, his practice revolves around diving into the realm of the subconscious and communicating the sublime of the everyday through mixed media. Like a moth to flame, he is usually present only physically, lost in a world of symbols, searching for beacons. As of late 2019, Rahul has taken up the position of Head Light Seeker at the Ocean Object Occlusion Academy House (OOOAH).

 

Susan Atwill is a British artist, who uses sound, drawing and sculpting processes, to explore the complex relationship between objects, space and being human. In 2019, she founded the Ocean Object Occlusion Academy House (OOOAH).

 

Conch-iousness : to be aware of and responsive to one's surroundings.

 

Introspection, imagination and self-awareness become sonically possible by experiencing the ‘Conch - iousness’ Listening Shell. Through this Listening Shell you will hear not just the sea, but experience a stream of externalised internal thoughts and questions, vocalised by a representation of your ‘self’. Through this bespoke organic listening device, listen to the voices, absorb the sounds, and consider your self - a reflexive of one’s own consciousness. 

Things to consider whilst listening to the Conch-iousness Listening Shell:

Am I a sum of my thoughts and presence?

What if my very being shifted based on the things I spoke?

Where is the boundary between “I” and my thoughts?

 Brought to you by Ocean Object Occlusion Academy House.

 

 Anne-Sophie Gauvin, Riya Patel, Danni Yang, Qize Zhu

Anne-Sophie Gauvin has developed environments for people to learn, create, share and play. She seeks to discover new formats that grow, provide new standards for social flows; and give new meaning to trends and language.

 

Riya Patel is a communication designer and user researcher seeking new dimensions of interactions across different mediums. She loves to explore how sound can be used to enhance the emotional connection between users and the virtual world.

 

Danni Yang is a dreamer, adventurer and corgi lover who has stepped foot in documentary, photography and design. She infuses playfulness in every project she undertakes, making sure everyone involved resonates with the narrative. 

 

Qize Zhu is fond of digital printing, motion design and branding. She majored in visual communication design, and is interested in becoming a Unity master.

The Life Aquatic

 What is water to you? Does it resonate with some of your most personal memories? This is a collection of aquatic tales from our childhood, contemporary ones we encounter or make up, extracts from dreams we had... An ocean of recollections that expands as we collectively immerse ourselves to tell stories and leave them behind for others to hear. Dive in with us into this body of water and listen to what it has to say. 

 

 Yi Tian

Yi Tian is an artist based in London and currently studying at Royal College of Art in Information Experience Design. In her practice, she showed her interests in exploring the relationship between materiality and temporality, and transforming it into intuitional experiences.

Heed

Heed is a sound installation, making the audience try to focus on the act of listening instead of making sound.

Luis Baez, Zijie Qu and Daniel Vera Villalobos

Luis Baez, Zijie Qu and Daniel Vera Villalobos are students at the Royal College of Art in London, MA Digital Direction. Coming from backgrounds in design & technology, visual communication and architecture, their interests as a team explore the influence of new technologies and narratives across disciplines.

Demo

This project reflects the different levels of “noise” - social, visual, audible - that appear together as a result of the uncontrolled expansion of mass tourism. This project features three 3D-printed models taking the form of specific architectural artifacts e.g. Corinthian capital. Projected on the models, from above, are the visual details of the artifacts providing an extra dimension of color and texture which draws viewers closer to the models. The audio that is emitted from the pieces are a verbal narrative describing the actual locations where the artifacts are found. As multiple viewers come closer to inspect the models and listen to the verbal descriptions, a new layer of audio begins to overlap. The new layer gradually obstructs the verbal layer with the “sounds of overtourism.” As viewers begin to become overwhelmed by this noise pollution and leave the noise begins to fall away again revealing the verbal narrative underneath.

Frances Allen

Frances Allen is a Sound Design student at the Royal College of Art, having previously studied music at the Reid School of Music, University of Edinburgh. In her compositional works, Frances is interested in the relationships that can be created between art/design and sound. Much of her work focuses around the idea of rotational structures and sequences to create sound environments or soundscapes to go alongside visual components.

Demo

A Sound Art piece which recreates the movements of the Rubik’s Cube.  The puzzle distorts and resolves through the movements of the faces which creates harmonic discord and resolution. To create the work, each colour of the cube has been assigned a pitch and each face has been assigned an octave range. Then through the use of a MAX/MSP, the frequencies of each colour on each face through each sequence is charted, to create a rotating soundscape.