Community Sound [e]Scapes: Improvising Bodies and Site/Space/Place in New Media Audio Art
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Published:March 2016
Rebecca Caines, 2016. "Community Sound [e]Scapes: Improvising Bodies and Site/Space/Place in New Media Audio Art", Negotiated Moments: Improvisation, Sound, and Subjectivity, Gillian Siddall, Ellen Waterman
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This chapter explores improvisation as a methodology for the creation of community-engaged, site-specific sound art projects. It presents a case study of the international new media audio art project Community Sound [e]Scapes to investigate how improvisation can be used as an artistic and social methodology to explore space and address community issues. The chapter analyzes examples from the project sites in Canada, Northern Ireland, and Australia, as well as examples from the online components of the project, to show how improvisation shaped both the planning and design of the project and changed the artistic and social outcomes. Framed in Lefebvrean spatiality theory, critical studies in improvisation, and recent scholarship in community engaged performance, the author argues that improvisation in community-engaged sound art carries risks and exposes the fault lines in power relationships in community partnerships, while simultaneously presenting new tools for ethical spatial and social engagement.
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