Scorescapes : on sound, environment and sonic consciousness
Harris, Y.
Citation
Harris, Y. (2011, December 6). Scorescapes : on sound, environment and sonic
consciousness. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/18184Version: Corrected Publisher’s Version
License: Licence agreement concerning inclusion of doctoral thesis in the Institutional Repository of the University of Leiden
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Acknowledgements:
Since the beginning of my doctoral trajectory in September 2008 I have been fortunate to have the support of many colleagues, friends and family. The early foundations of the research presented here, began as early as 2003, first as artistic researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, then as visiting fellow at the Academy of Media Arts (KHM) in Cologne, followed by artist in residence at the Netherlands Media Art Institute (NIMk) in collaboration with STEIM in Amsterdam. I am grateful to these institutions and the various individuals who stood behind my work and actively encouraged its development.
My decision to continue with academic research in the form of a PhD, and the belief that this constitutes a fundamental approach to my artistic practice, was recognised and encouraged by Professor Frans de Ruiter, who made my dream of pursuing a PhD on my own terms as a practicing artist seem feasible and desirable. This opportunity to explore in more depth the relationship between my practice and its inextricable links with research and theory has, as I had hoped, contributed rigour and focus to my work while opening up vistas for potential directions in the future. I am also grateful to Frans for trusting and honouring my request for two supervisors, musicologist Dr. Bob Gilmore and composer David Dunn, experts and mavericks in this rapidly developing field, whose guidance kept me on my own constantly evolving track.
My interest in cetaceans and underwater sound began as a hunch that developed out of my earlier work on sonic navigations, in particular the echolocation of dolphins and bats. Rosita Wouda, acting coordinator of the DocArtes program at the time, trusted this hunch and encouraged it unceasingly, giving me my first book on whale song and (perhaps more importantly) establishing a crucial contact with marine bio-acoustician Professor Michel André. I am very grateful to Rosita for her continued support through the challenges of the first two years of research.
Michel André has been consistently generous with his time and open to my ideas and participation in his own research on underwater sound, cetaceans and the mitigation of noise pollution in the world’s oceans. His openness to the largely foreign workings and methods of an independent artist is unusual but nothing less than visionary in recognising and actively supporting collaborations between artists and sciencists. I am grateful to Michel for opening this world up to me.
Of the many others who have influenced my research and supported my projects I would like to thank composers Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros, Annea Lockwood; the remarkably inventive and sensitive musicians collaborating in S.W.A.M.P. (Ned McGowan, Christopher Williams, Kato Hideki, Stephen Menotti, Morton Olsen, Werner Dafedecker, William Lang
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and Jim Pugliese); colleagues in the DocArtes programme and at the Orpheus Institute; and my yoga teacher Francis Verdonk for helping me understand issues of consciousness in relation to mind and body, therapist Elco Olde for introducing me to EMDR and Pauline Oliveros’ collaborator Ione for teaching me dream work.
I would also like to express my gratitude for the institutional support from sponsors and curators and from the venues and festivals where I have presented my work (see appendix).
In particular, I would like to thank the FondsBKVB (Netherlands Foundation for Art, Design and Architecture), Sonic Acts Amsterdam and the Atlantic Center for the Arts Florida, and the curators Anette Schafer and Miles Chalcraft, Annet Dekker, Hicham Khalidi, Kit Hammonds and Matthias Ulrich.
I especially wish to thank my parents, architects Anthony and Kathryn Harris, for their unerring support, emotionally, idealogically and intellectually. I do follow in the steps of their idealism and belief in pursuing ones dreams. One of their dreams was their wandering home, yacht Symphony, which enabled me to make many of the recordings, inspired my ideas and are fundamental to the final works Taking Soundings, Navigating by Circles, Sail and Pink Noise.
The beginning of my doctoral trajectory coincided with meeting scholar Edward Shanken.
Together we have transformed our worlds and expanded our research endeavours in an idealistic spirit of the sharing and expansion of knowledge through the experience,
production and dissemination of art in the context of life. Our collaboration on the lecture- performance Tuning In, Spacing Out was an example and experiment into where such ideas can lead.
In unexpected directions! Edward and I married and brought our beautiful daughter Jasmin into the world on the 19th of September 2011. Jasmin ‘allowed’ me to listen to the sounds of her growing in my womb, to watch images of her via ultrasonic equipment, and experience a relationship between body and mind, perception and understanding, audible and inaudible, on a level I could never have imagined. These experiences are pre-empted in my
dissertation. Naturally, I dedicate this thesis to her new life.
129 Yolande Harris is a composer and artist engaged with sound and image in environment and architectural space. Her most recent artistic research projects Sun Run Sun: On Sonic Navigations (2008-2009), and Scorescapes (2009-2011) explore sound, its image and its role in relating humans and their technologies to the environment. These works consider techniques of navigation, sound worlds outside the human hearing range, underwater bioacoustics and the sonification of data. They take the form of audio-visual installations and performances, instruments, walks, performative lectures and writings.
Her work is presented internationally in the context of visual art exhibitions, music venues and media art festivals. These include: MACBA Barcelona, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Hayward Gallery Touring UK, Netherlands Media Art Institute Amsterdam, V2_
Rotterdam, ISEA Singapore and Ruhr, UCLA Hammer Museum, Villa Croce Genova, Issue Project Room New York, Shedhalle Zurich, Transmediale Berlin, Atlantic Center for the Arts Florida, STEIM Amsterdam, Ear to the Earth Festival New York, WRO Media Art Biennale Poland and Sonic Acts Festival Amsterdam.
Harris is currently an ORCiM Research Fellow at the Orpheus Institute for Advanced Studies and Research in Music in Ghent. Between 2008 and 2011 she was awarded a national artist subsidy from the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture. From 2007 to 2008 Harris was Artist in Residence at the Netherlands Institute for Media
Art (NIMK, formerly Montevideo) in collaboration with STEIM (Studio for Electro- Instrumental Music) in Amsterdam. During 2006 she was Artistic Fellow in the Sound Department of the Academy of Media Arts (KHM) in Cologne. From 2003 to 2005 Harris was an Artistic Researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academy: Post-Academic Institute for Research and Production in Fine Art, Design and Theory in Maastricht.
Yolande Harris started her Ph.D. in 2008, recently completing her dissertation on artistic research into sound and the environment in the DocArtes program and plans to defend it at the University of Leiden (2011). She holds an M.Phil. in architecture/moving image from the University of Cambridge (2000), a B.A. in Music from Dartington College of Arts (1997), and studied music and art history at Edinburgh University (1995). In addition she has studied musical composition with leading figures in experimental music, Frank Denyer, Louis Andriessen, Lou Harrison, Peter Sculthorpe, Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros and David Dunn.
Teaching features prominently in Harris’ work. In 2012 she will be a Lecturer at the
University of Leiden teaching a course on soundscapes. From 2006 to 2007 she was Lecturer in Interaction Design at the Technical University of Eindhoven. She has held numerous Visiting Lecturer positions at art and design colleges, including the Academy of Media Arts (KHM) in Cologne, the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, the Department of Architecture, Design and Building at the University of Technology in Sydney, and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy of Fine Art in Amsterdam.
