Speculative Sound Synthesis

We live in a world marked by dramatic transformations in the ways in which we engage with each other, objects and processes. Ubiquitous yet often unnoticeable algorithms shape our lives and determine our ways of perceiving, thinking, acting and communicating. Art, and in particular artistic research, has the capacity to question notions that underlie such algorithms and engage with technology on material, conceptual, and aesthetic levels. This is equally true for sound synthesis technologies. Composers, musicians, and sound artists use and develop technologies to produce their works. They establish practical and theoretical relationships between technology, perception, and artistic practice. Technology is thus not merely a neutral tool. Art can be understood as a material reflection of and through its own means of production. A central objective of this project is to establish a "free relationship" between art and technology, not by conservatively rejecting technology nor by uncritically embracing recent tools, but by artistically questioning digital sound technology "from within." This project seeks to artistically question and investigate digital sound synthesis by destabilizing technological standards. In doing so, the idea of speculation is central to this project, both methodologically as well as aesthetically. Speculation concerns the how, what, and the why of this project, its methods and its objectives. For us, speculation does not refer to unfounded conjecture or purely theoretical thought removed from concrete practice or experience. On the contrary, speculation can be understood as an oscillation between experience and imagination that is characteristic of processes that bring forth new forms of knowledge. We aim to be sensitive to the ways in which our material exceeds our conceptualizations. We believe that sound synthesis can be a speculative nexus at which technology, aesthetics, and experimentation come together. This project seeks to destabilize the relation of aesthetics and technology in the field of computer music. Its objectives range from the creation of speculative sound models that abolish the distinction between synthesis and composition to the development of novel presentation formats that expose artistic thought. We see this project as an attempt to release aesthetic potentials of sound synthesis for artistic practice that would otherwise remain unknown, concealed by standard technological gestures. In this sense, speculation is capable of overcoming inductive or deductive processes and able to dynamize the interrelation of technology and aesthetics.