After finalising the content and form of my audio paper, here is the script and the audio paper itself:
Should audio papers be an alternative to written dissertations in a level 4 university course in the arts?
In this paper, what an audio paper and a written dissertation are will be defined and compared to one another.
Then the reasons why written dissertations could be more useful than audio papers in a formative learning context will be discussed. Finally, this paper will conclude by answering the aforementioned question and why one shouldn’t make an audio paper in the third year of the sound arts course at UAL.
The audio paper format will be used as an alternative to the classic written dissertation in the third year of the sound arts course at UAL. While it can seem on the surface that this is a solution to problems with accessibility or that it is a good way to make the dissertation relevant to a course in sound art, problems with fairness, usefulness and equivalents easily flare up. This paper seeks to understand what an audio paper really is and if it is fit to truly replace the written dissertation or even be a counterpart to it in the environment of an undergraduate course at university.
First, we must define what is being argued. As is the definition in many dictionaries, a dissertation is “a long piece of writing on a particular subject, especially one that is done in order to receive a degree at college or university” (Cambridge Dictionary). A dissertation can also be characterized in other ways, but many of those characteristics are shown as a mirror of the proposed characteristics of an audio paper from Sanne Krogh Groth’s and Kristine Samson’s Audio Paper – a manifesto on the Seismo graph website(Groth and Samson 2016).
A short definition for an audio paper would be that they “resemble the regular essay or the academic text in that they deal with a certain topic of interest, but presented in the form of an audio production.” (Groth and Samson 2016) such a definition is brief due to its reduction of the differences between the two formats to just a difference in medium but the article goes on to describe those differences.
The first part of this manifesto perfectly highlights the difference between the audio paper and the classic dissertation, “The audio paper affords performative aesthetics”. An audio paper is thought to be an experimental format that tries to develop the field of academia (Groth and Samson 2016). This would be great to have as a project in an undergraduate course, but the question is it appropriate to have it as an alternative to a conventional dissertation.?
Fairness, “the quality of treating people equally or in a way that is right or reasonable” (Cambridge Dictionary), a quality important in any standardized academic testing. If an audio paper is practically a performance, akin to a sound art piece or artwork, how can it be judged in the same way as any formal academic writing? Dissertations lack that performative aspect that its competitor has. It can only be judged for its context, how it analyzes, evaluates and debates its topic, and the references used. With an extra factor in the marking process of an audio paper in comparison to a dissertation, it would be easy to understand if it was easier to get a higher grade on the audio paper than the dissertation as it focuses more on the form and not just the content. Even in a sound arts course, something like that cannot be called fair, as those who choose to just write are not treated equally to those who choose to speak.
“The audio paper is idiosyncratic,” is the second proposed tenet for the format (Groth and Samson 2016). The writers understand that conventions like the artist being the narrator lends itself to a more personal and empirical take on any topic. However, in combination with the third tenet “The audio paper is situated and partial,” the usefulness of the audio paper in the 3rd year is thrown into question.
First, its usefulness to academia. If it is partisan, one would not be receiving a holistic understanding of the topic or statement being talked about. This means that the goal of bringing about “new perspectives to a defined research topic”(Groth and Samson 2022) becomes a lot harder to do as a partisan paper doesn’t seek to further academia but to radicalise it. Second, its usefulness to a budding sound artist. The personal quality of the format becomes a problem if we think about what a young sound artist needs. They already make sound art for their development which is then supplemented with formal written papers. If the written papers are replaced with audio papers, the personal nature of the audio papers positions them in a way that causes them to become another version of sound art. Audio papers become an expression of the self, informal and easy, while on the other hand, written dissertations are a great way to formalise ideas (Smith) and interact with research from senior artists, it is also hard to write them, use specific terminology and complete them at a high standard.
Audio papers and written dissertations strive for the same ideals, the furtherment of sound studies. Despite this, they are not equivalent. They cannot be marked the same way. They do not test for the same skills. They fundamentally have different formats, have vastly different histories behind them and have different focuses in practice. Yet, in the UAL sound arts course, it is proposed that they are equivalent in the fact that they are alternatives to each other.
It is clear that these 2 different formats have their place in sound arts; however, the question is Should Audio Papers be an alternative to Written Dissertations in the 3rd year of a Level 4 University Course in the arts?
Inside a sound arts course, one of the only ways for an artist to interact with sound arts on a global scale as a peer and not a consumer is through written dissertations and the research necessary for them. A written dissertation only focuses on the statement at the top of the page, using the research to inform judgements and ideas presented by the budding sound art student. The problem that audio papers have is that they cannot only focus on the content but have to give more credence to the form of the paper. When an audio paper pushes into the territory of a sound art piece, is there a need to juxtapose it with the written dissertation? Does it actually improve the nurturing of a pre-undergraduate sound arts student or does it just improve the image of the course as it is “always changing and trying to improve itself”?
With our audio papers for this module, we prepare for a route that we could go down in our third year of this course (UAL 2022). However, it is said by some of the pioneers of the audio paper format that the format is still defining itself (Groth and Samson 2019), meaning that what we do now could define what we will define as audio papers in our 3rd year.
Of course, the reason why audio papers were introduced in the course was for accessibility. While I’m not sure if that would be aimed at someone like myself, I am diagnosed with Dyslexia and positioned to make an audio paper in the third year.
I will not be doing that. One can listen back at all the critiques that have been made about audio papers in the context of this course. I, on the other hand, have different reasons as to why I do not want to make an audio paper as opposed to a written dissertation.
What I think about all the time is how good of an artist I will be after this course. Well, more if I’ll be a good artist at all. I have a year and a half to become an undergraduate-level sound artist, after which I will probably never go into formal education again, for the arts or anything else. I’ll be thrust upon the world, being only able to use the skills I have gained before then to survive. The question to myself is, “How do I raise my chances of survival?”
I learn as much as I can and I push myself as much as I can.
I struggle immensely with writing to the point where I try not to text my friends and voice note them instead in fear that I’ll text something incorrectly and cause a misunderstanding. Yet my ineptitude in writing and my dyslexia are exactly why I want to write a written dissertation.
I want to be better than I am and I want to make up for my flaws. I don’t want to come out of this course just passing and lacking the skills that I need to do what I love, which is making art.
To me, audio papers are the easy option as they are too similar to what we do on the course in general, they allow for even more unfair luxuries in the easier marking criteria to the point where I feel that it would be immoral for myself to make an audio paper in the third year.
At the end of the day, an audio paper was never an alternative to a written dissertation, it was the subversion to the growth of any sound arts student.
A quote that will stick with me for the rest of my life and one that makes sense of why I don’t want to make an audio paper for my third year is one I’ll end on.
“in filth, it will be found”
Out of all of the projects I’ve done at UAL so far, so believe that this one has been the most important and that is because it uses the context of being for a university course to itself advantage, is relevant to me and how I interact with the course and genuinely tries to further academia in some ways as this topic isn’t really talked about.
I do wish that I could have gone into the psychology of writing and speech; however, when I researched both topics, it became clear that such information would be better served in a written dissertation as my audio paper just couldn’t allow for such a wide scope with a time limit of 10 minutes.
Also, I felt like I was repeating points slightly but I think it helped that I give the paper an ultra-personal spin at the end. It was genuinely really fun to act as a hyper-exaggerated character in the audio paper and throughout the weeks so that I could build a more interesting narrative.
I thought the form that my audio paper would take would be too boring without anything in the background yet I found it really easy and interesting to listen through it despite it only being ai-voices.
All in all, I think I did a good job with the paper itself, it’s just apparent that my timings are holding me back.