Category: Second Year

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.

This blog will answer the last question for this project, What will the audio paper sound like? 

This audio paper is in opposition to itself, disagreeing with the notion that an audio paper is appropriate as an alternative to a written dissertation in this sound arts course. My idea for the form it’ll take is one that tries to imitate what a written paper is like while rejecting the natural inclinations of an audio paper. 

One aspect I wanted to focus on was making the piece formal and impersonal. Audio papers lend themselves to performative ascetics as speaking has a great number of nuances to it, what if I could eliminate that problem? Ai-generated voices, while still expressive compared to writing, AIs find it a lot harder to vary the tone, texture, dynamics and personality of speech like a human can. This means that the audio paper will be almost as idiosyncratic as a written dissertation. 

The ai-voice line will be created using a few different online text-to-speech programs and then spliced together in audacity. 

Another important part of audio papers is that they render affects and sensations, something that I do not want to do as it clashes with what I talk about in the audio paper. So no sound design, music or sound effects other than the ai voices. 

Something I’m choosing to follow in terms of the 8 audio paper tenets is the aspect of multiple protagonists. I’m trying to make the audio paper detached from myself; however, I believe that this includes not having hallmarks of myself in the paper. What I mean by this is that I plan to use a female voice for the majority of the paper. This makes sense as it’s known that female voices are more convincing and it shows that I am not present as a character in the paper at that point, showing that I don’t want the audio paper to be appreciated in context of myself. 

However, it is still an audio paper and I believe it is very important to have a narrative show in the content and the form it takes. Despite trying to make the piece non-idiosyncratic, the topic is already personal to me and the last section of the paper is devoted to my reaction to the audio paper option in the 3rd year. In that section, the voice will switch to a male ai-voice, I don’t use my own voice because I honestly like the ascetics of the ai-voice and I still don’t want to make it about myself strangely.

Why an ai-voice and not have someone else record these lines for me? In this audio paper, I am critical of the course I am on but as a student in an undergraduate course and I wonder if despite my criticisms having truth in them, they fall on dead ears because of who I am at this university. Ai-voices try to mimic human voices and because of that, they are stereotypical and unoriginal. They could represent anyone. 

These ai-voices mask the identity of the creator of the audio paper so that the listener can ask themselves, “if I didn’t hear this from a student but something whom I respected or who is knowledgeable, what would I think about what is said in this audio paper? What would I do in response?” 

My audio paper is ignorant and lacks the context that the tutors of the course have in terms of creating a university curriculum. I just hope that the form of the paper will allow for the content of the paper to not fall on deaf ears and just be marked. 

I need to finish the content of my audio paper. 

Here’s my proposed structure again 

• Intro  
• What are Audio papers and Written Dissertations?  
• Benefits of a written dissertation as a means to prepare and teach students how to formalise their ideas and also acclimatise them to the field of sound arts  
• Why I wouldn’t be making an audio paper in my final year 

Although it’s unfortunate that I have to be brief when describing what an audio paper is, I thought it would be fine when thinking about the context of the paper (being marked by a sound arts tutor).  

The main chunk of the paper is the third part, Benefits of a written dissertation as a means to prepare and teach students how to formalise their ideas and also acclimatise them to the field of sound arts. The way I have and plan to go about this section is by splitting the benefits of a written dissertation into 3 main points. Fairness, usefulness and equivalents, which in turn are in reference to 3 of the 8 tenets that Groth and Samson say are what makes an audio paper. 

Fairness is quite obvious as the marking criterion for a written dissertation and audio paper will have to be different. I could also go into the unfair nature of offering this boon to anyone on the course as the audio paper should be used to level the playing field between those who legitimately struggle with the written dissertation and those who are arguably not inspired enough to want to put time into a written dissertation. However, I plan to bring up accessibility in my final section as it makes more sense there. 

Usefulness is an ironic point as it talks about how an audio paper in the final year wouldn’t fulfil the core aspect of an audio paper (that being that it tries to bring a new perspective to already established topics) because we are not even undergraduates in sound art yet and we are too restricted in terms of scope and topic in our university course as we are primarily focusing on marks, not furthering research. This point is ironic because despite everything I’m trying to do with my audio paper, it has that same context and narrow scope and it could be seen as hubris and ignorance that my topic is what it is. 

The last point is equivalents. I wrote that a long time ago in my script proposal so I have no clue what I originally meant by it. If I had to guess it would be about one of the ideas I initially wanted to touch upon in this project Audio papers are not equivalent to written dissertations. It’s not a debate that audio papers are fundamentally different to written dissertations despite both mediums sharing similar goals, so it does throw into question why it’s being utilised as an alternative to written dissertations. I mentioned before how this makes it unfair in terms of marking but an even bigger problem due to how the 3rd year is structured, an audio paper would test for the same skills as our final sound arts project and would also lack the depth that a written dissertation has (at least is the audio paper is limited to a time similar to the time limit we have in this project I.e., 30 mins). While the point does practically rehash the previous points, I’m sure there is a unique angle I can take and even without that angle, the 2 different mediums being different is something that needs to be remembered. 

After those 3 points, I want to reflect a bit on them, talking about how hardship would be better for one who is growing as a sound artist, question whether it is better for the student or the teacher that an audio paper is being introduced and then something idealistic and inspiring. 

I want to finish with something personal but also something that will tie the whole piece together, Why I wouldn’t be making an audio paper in my final year. I still want to use the quirks of an audio paper to create something more interesting and impactful even if my how paper practically opposes the format in this context. I think it will be interesting to share my perspective as someone who should be more inclined to make an audio paper instead want to write a written paper for self-betterment. 

In this blog, I’ll be taking some time to go over the research I’ve been doing, analysing the sources and lastly understanding how it’s relevant to my project. 

An example of one of the initial pieces of research I came across (other than the ones that are mentioned in our course already) is M Cecil Smith’s small article on The Benefits of Writing. 

https://www.niu.edu/language-literacy/_pdf/the-benefits-of-writing.pdf

 An article like this doesn’t actually teach me anything new but does give me a legitimate bias for some of my arguments. The main part I would want to quote is the fact that writing does help one think and is integral to being able to “concretize abstract ideas” and “connect the dots in their knowledge”. 

Of course, an article like that is an initial piece of research as it doesn’t really help me decipher a clear benefit of written dissertations over the audio paper. 

An interesting source I will use is Chapter 14 The Audio Paper As Affective Attunements of the book Practical Aesthetics, edited by Bernd Herzogenrath.  

https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Mx75DwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA159&dq=are+written+papers+better+than+audio+papers&ots=609RZ71RYV&sig=zJSIBvtkHy-gcq4dvzNvbKVvy4E#v=onepage&q=are%20written%20papers%20better%20than%20audio%20papers&f=false

In my own personal research document, when I was gathering sources, this book came up multiple times because it has a chapter devoted to the topic, but chapter 14 is written by 2 pioneers of the audio paper, Sanne Krogh Groth and Kristine Samson. 

While it takes a similar route as their online manifesto and articles, there are still a few things I could use in this chapter. The quote “The core of the audio paper is an academic argument, as it is positioned in ongoing research; it brings in new perspectives to a defined research topic; and it argues with adequate and sensible means” sticks out to me. In the first paragraph, Groth and Samson set out some obvious guidelines for the audio paper, the notion that an audio paper is meant to bring in new perspectives to research just isn’t congruent with the audio papers I’ve seen. I mean this is because the research focus in many audio papers is lost or they don’t actually try to further academics in any way (instead focusing more on the layperson as the main listener). 

Though, this first page does a great job of defining what an audio paper is, a definition I wish I saw sooner in this module. 

Another important line is “As an academic media format, we argue that the audio paper contributes to an aesthetic-affective encounter enabling the researcher and the listener alike to attune into a field of research.” I wholeheartedly agree that the audio paper is an effective medium in terms of getting ideas across that would not be possible in the written format, but I do wonder why I haven’t been able to find as many audio papers on this topic or why it is correct to disseminate this information in a written format despite trying to usurp traditional academic writing with the audio paper. 

Something else I thought was interesting was the lack of any mention of the audio paper being used in any formative education, so it’s clear that its scope of usage never covered learning institutions. Why that is the case I do not know. 

A small thing that I’ve been thinking about is how Groth and Samson have a big invested interest in pushing the concept of an audio paper as they have a lot of work in the field and are trying to position themselves as pioneers of the audio paper format. That aspect is linked to the fact that in a lot of documentation on audio papers, there is a bigger focus on being revolutionary or a subversion of academia rather than an improvement on written dissertations. 

As I’ve been researching more and more for this project, something that has stuck out to me is that there isn’t much literature on Audio papers in the context of undergraduate university courses, which is a problem because I don’t really want to be self-referential. On top of that, I do find it awkward to constantly reference the course as a source rather than an article or book.  

What is even more awkward is how Groth and Samson are the only sources I can use that actually talk about audio papers at length, which is very problematic because of the reasons I outlined before. A lot of the articles I found were either written by the pair or clearly involved with the two in some way.  

All of these problems make for an interesting path for my paper yet one that maybe not be right for me to talk about at my level of academic achievement. But then again, something like this would only be relevant now and not after I’ve graduated. 

This blog mainly contains my general outline for my piece, as well as part of the script proposal. 

My new title for the paper is Should Audio Papers be an alternative to Written Dissertations in the 3rd year of a Level 4 University Course in the arts? A lengthy title but is exactly what the paper is about and is more in the style of what a written dissertation’s title would be like. 

In terms of the initial idea for the structure of the piece, I reduced the points I wanted to talk about previously to these sections 

• Intro  
• What are Audio papers and Written Dissertations?  
• Benefits of a written dissertation as a means to prepare and teach students how to formalise their ideas and also acclimatise them to the field of sound arts  
• Why I wouldn’t be making an audio paper in my final year  

And here is my script proposal which is practically just a part of my script. 

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 I will not be making an audio paper in my final year. 

The audio paper format will be used as an alternative to the classic written dissertation in the third year. 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” [1]. 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 manifesto in the Seismo graph. 

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.” [2] such a definition is brief due to its reduction of the differences between the two formats to just a difference in medium. The article goes on to describe those differences. 

The first part of this manifesto perfectly highlights the difference between the audio paper and classic dissertations, “The audio paper affords performative aesthetics”. An audio paper is thought to be an experimental format that tries to develop the field of academic writing or works. This would be great to do as a project in an undergraduate course, but maybe not as an alternative to a conventional dissertation. 

Fairness, “the quality of treating people equally or in a way that is right or reasonable” [3], a quality important in any standardized academic testing. if an audio paper is practically a performance, akin to a work of art, 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 marketing 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 in the audio paper than the dissertation. Even in a sound art 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.” the second proposed tenant for the format. The writers understand that conventions like the artist being the narrator lends itself 2 a more personal and empirical take on any topic. 

Even with this small part of the paper, I’m running into pretty bad timing issues so I will need to cut a lot of the chaff. That chaff probably being the definitions and some of my usual “flare”. 

The Problematic Rise of Audio Papers in Formative Academic Institutes. What does such a topic actually entail? 

After reflecting on what an audio paper is and its use as an alternative to a written dissertation within this course, I started to debate the potential problems that could arise from that. While a lot of these problems are not that important outside of university (like the audio paper lending itself to performance), inside of an educational institution where testing is meant to be fair, those problems start to fester. 

As someone who has been tested and diagnosed with Dyslexia (if that wasn’t apparent in my numerous grammar and spelling mistakes), a topic such as this is of great importance because I should be in favour of audio papers and not of a written dissertation. However, I realised that assumption made no sense because one would have to write an essay either way. The only way to make the audio paper easier than a written paper would be to have different criteria for marking it that focus less on the actual content of the paper and more on how it’s presented.  

Personally, I hate taking the easy path especially when it pertains to important things such as my final written research project. In my eyes, an audio paper would be that easy path because it’s unfair to have it as a direct alternative to a written dissertation when it is not. Also, there is a line of thought that would disagree with opening the option up with every student because it stops being an accessibility option and becomes an easy trap for sound arts students to neuter their growth in formalising their research in sound studies. In the first year, in the reflection of a book reading project we did, it was said that a big roadblock in understanding what was being said was the immense amount of jargon in the books. That jargon is something that we will have to be able to understand and utilise in our own writings after we graduate from university so that we aren’t just seen as amateurs and taken seriously in academia. 

I also find it interesting that despite every bit of literature on audio papers stating how they’re either a subversion or fundamentally different to written papers, the audio paper format is being pitched as a 1-1 alternative to the written dissertation just because the audio paper is trying to revolutionise academic research. Nowhere does it say the audio paper is an exact alternative to the written paper meaning that they would not be able to be marked the same, and then different skills would be tested in each format. It would not be fair for those who pick the written dissertation, and if having fair marking is not a major concern, it makes me wonder even more why UAL has marking regulations at all. 

The points I’m thinking of covering are these  

Ideas I want to talk about  

• Audio papers are not equivalent to written dissertations  
• It’s not a useful practice in a formative environment  
• The format isn’t just judged on the content  
• The idea of an audio paper on our course isn’t defined enough to make sense to do at the end of the course  
• The idea of an audio paper is different than originally proposed  
• The audio paper format is hypocritical  
• The reason why written dissertations are done  
• The struggle to improve and not run away from adversity (in filth it is found)  
• Why I will not make an audio paper despite being dyslexic  

There are more ideas; however, it would be prudent to distil my audio paper into a few important points because I have only 10 minutes, and a topic such as this could be talked about ad nauseam. 

I need a great deal of research to back up my opinions in linguistics, philosophy and the psychology of writing. 

I fear this project is moving away from the desired topics of the tutor(s) who created this assignment; however, I believe it to be important to interact with the course in such a way because the brief talks about preparing ourselves for a potential audio paper in the third year and dictating what that would entail. There isn’t a better time to talk about such a topic than now. 

Now I know what an audio paper is, I can move on to my next question, What topic or statement do I want to base the paper on? 

Throughout the weeks, I found it hard to think of topics that were interesting in their own right but also appropriate for an audio paper in an undergraduate course. Despite that, these were the stand-out ideas I came up with 

The Problematic Rise of Audio Papers in Formative Academic Institutes – This paper would be self-critical as it would try to understand if audio papers in an undergraduate university course were useful or detrimental to a sound arts student such as myself. 

The Homogenisation of Indie Video Game Music – While the title makes little to no sense, this paper would first be an investigation into the trends of indie video game music and try to figure out if the trend-jumping and shovelware nature of the indie scene is causing a homogeny in video game music. This topic stems from how I have been noticing that the soundtracks in indie games are usually the same style of electronic video game music which makes me worry that music in video games is being treated as a necessary evil or means to an end instead of something integral to the game. 

The Copy-Write of Audio – For this idea, I wanted to discuss copywriting laws for audio samples and pieces, and then argue that copywriting is actually an enemy of sound art and restricts the development of it. I find great interest in law and as someone who is not sure if it’s right to purely sell your art and skills as an artist, I thought it could be a thought-provoking rabbit hole to go down. 

Something Something Thought Something Something in an Auditory Context – I had no idea how to word the title but the main idea for this topic was “the sound of thought”, how thought is coded and how thoughts themselves are portrayed aurally (not only through languages like English). I did psychology when I was younger so a topic like this would play to that interest. 

The Manipulation in Language and how Foreign Languages are Interpreted – This topic would mainly be about logical and lexical semantics (I was always bad at English so I’m not sure that is correct) This means talking about the difference between the defined meaning of a word and what words mean in terms of how they are used. I would then want to bring in the idea of nonverbal communication into it too, or at least diction/articulation. 

All these ideas are interesting in their own right, but the one that really stands out to me as unique in context to myself and what would be relevant to me is the first topic The Problematic Rise of Audio Papers in Formative Academic Institutes. This is because as someone who would be positioned to make an audio paper in lieu of a written dissertation, I believe it would be useful to look at what I’m doing as a student critically, not only to learn more about my future options but also to birth an intimate understanding of why I’m doing what I’m doing in this course.  

However, in respect of the project itself, an audio paper about the positives and negatives effects of introducing the format to contrast to the final dissertation would make for an exciting and thought-provoking subversion of the project as well as a useful pilot to talk about the battle between tradition and modernity or at least a pilot to talk about whether or not innovation is always truly innovative.  

This blog will be devoted to understanding and reflecting on the Audio Papers – a manifesto article on the Seismograf website as well as looking at a response to that manifesto. 

As with the response to the manifesto, I’ll list the 8 tenets here: 

1. The audio paper affords performative aesthetics. 

2. The audio paper is idiosyncratic. 

3. The audio paper is situated and partial. 

4. The audio paper renders affects and sensations. 

5. The audio paper is multifocal; it assembles diverse and often heterogeneous voices. 

6. The audio paper has multiple protagonists, narrators and material agencies. 

7. The audio paper brings aesthetics and technologies together in mediation. 

8. The audio paper is a constituent part of larger ecologies. 

Something I had suspected was the case with audio papers were their “public speaking tenancies”. What I mean by that is that is covered in 3 main points. 

• The form has now become just as prominent as the content while being juxtaposed to the written dissertation (the first tenet, fourth tenet and seventh tenet). A performative aspect has grown because the audio paper seeks to improve on the written paper format and to not become redundant in comparison to the written paper and visual documentary (meaning that the audio paper has to focus on the quirks of the medium to not die out as an idea) 

• Unlike a dissertation but like a public speaking event, the content of the audio paper is deeply linked to the creator due to stylistic choices but also due to the switch from formal written language to a more informal spoken one (the second tenet). This was the aspect of audio papers I found the most prominent as I learnt about what they are. Anything that called itself an audio paper would confuse me as it didn’t make sense to how information was either not very organised, not as informative as I expected from a written paper alternative or informal as speech lends itself more to being informal in general. The biggest offender of this point would be podcasts (if you include those as audio papers). 

• Audio papers have to have narrow scope in terms of formal information so that they can fit in all the other sounds that are in an audio paper. A more restrictive structure leads to having a more biased or partisan paper as you have to get your point across in a shorter amount of time (touches upon the third tenet, sixth tenet and fifth tenet). This is a strange point as I do completely ignore the existence of normal podcasts with it; however, I do believe that it doesn’t make sense to include long 1-2hr podcasts as audio papers from the get-go as they’re already established in the public consciousness as something separate to other auditory mediums and are their own unique thing. It is hard to make 2 people talking for a long time interesting and most audio papers try to avoid that happening and try to keep the focus of the listener through sound design and interesting editing (and content of course). This sacrifices time for the transfer of knowledge from the creator to the listener, but an audio paper tries to be academic in some way. So due to that restriction in time, the information in the audio paper has to be biased to the opinion of the creator and narrow in scope so that the point being made can be made. 

I call it “public speaking tenancies” as an audio paper has put itself in the position of being a piece of public speaking with sound design on top. Of course, that’s a very reductive view of what audio papers are like but when the definition is so vast, there are places where my findings are accurate. 

The What is an Audio Paper? response to Seismograph manifesto article by Holger Schulze reflects on the tenets set out by Samson and Groth while also leaving a lot on the table. 

The main takeaway is near the start of the article where Schulze mentions the incongruency in how the audio paper sets out to be an outlet of academic research yet becomes informal, personal and partisan as the audio paper intrinsically avoids the hallmarks of “traditional academic presentation”. Other than that, the article mostly goes on to be a hopeful and inspiring text about the future possibilities for the audio paper.  

What’s interesting to me is that there is no link on moodle to Samson and Groth’s newer article on the Seismograf website that goes into their experiences with audio papers and also some background on the making of the audio paper manifesto. It was interesting to see in that in the same article that “the audio paper is an academic publication” yet is also a subversion of academia and the logic between to two statements. Another thing that caught my eye was the statement “A clear definition of the audio paper is thus still in the making and depends on its future manifestations.” What this says to me is that the very idea of an audio paper right now, being an alternative to traditional academics, can change based on what calls itself an audio paper in the future.  

After learning what an audio paper could be and confirming its tendencies, it has made me reconsider my excitement to make one as it now becomes a much more daunting task creatively and has revealed itself as another sound arts piece without any real direction other than it trying to be an academic piece. I wonder if the term audio paper actually has longevity and if it’s not just a fad of the time we live in because it is prone to be warped into something completely different to what it is now. It also makes me wonder if in 30 years the term audio paper will be a popular term or if it’ll be consumed and assimilated into a different term like Sound Studies. 

In this second blog, I’ll be doing the follow-up task for the first week. 

I didn’t plan to do the follow-up task as I had enough to say in my reflection on the brief and lesson from last week, but after listening to some of the podcasts, I thought it would be a waste not to talk about them. 

The first podcast I listened to was The Sound of Life Itself by Tim Hinman. 

A general synopsis of the podcast is that it’s a semi-comedic documentary about the sounds of the world that acts as an introduction to soundscapes and general sound art. 

Personally, I felt that at any point that there wasn’t speech, the podcast was practically a sound effects reel or demonstration. When there was speech, I did find it hard to focus on and take seriously because the content was not what I was prepared for or interested in. 

The podcast is genuinely interesting in its own right, but it goes all over the place with its tone with it sometimes trying to be funny but then making it not comedic with its serious meaning and reaches in logic. One point made in the podcast talking about how we’ve become a visual culture was a really interesting point, as I did find it harder to focus on the podcast as there without a visual element. However, saying that society now is more focused on the visual than the auditory is like saying that we only developed our sight with the advent of civilisation, it’s just untrue. The fact that the sound ecologist Bernie Krause then goes on to talk about music soon after shows the incongruency in the argument he’s trying to get across. Sound has been and will always be important to the humankind at any point in their history because it’s one of our intrinsic senses. To say that we have moved away from what we hear is a premature take and one that has a contemporary bias.

Of course, that is just an example of how this podcast is reductive. It’s clear that this podcast has something it’s trying to say and it ignores everything else in service of saying that something, what that something is I have no idea because that’s not clear. It could be having an environmental message, a go to the countryside for your health message, a do what you want message, or could just be telling a very bad history of the world if you stop around the 10-minute mark. 

This first podcast honestly was a disappointment in terms of answering what an audio paper is. It has a very unoriginal narrative and narrative style/structure and it lacks any real direction other than ‘interesting sounds’. It was produced immaculately despite a lot of the sounds in it sounding more like sound effects and stock ones at best, but I say it was produced well because I could see it being a segment in a BBC Radio broadcast, maybe. 

The Sound of Life Itself is unfortunately forgettable, not because it is bad or not well done but because it is just another BBC Radio play, and arguably a lot less interesting than a BBC Radio play. 

I understand that it’s more of a documentary as well; however, does not really fulfil that criterion and then it lends itself more as an interview. An interview is fine; however, it leaves the listener confused because they did not come for an interview but for a podcast about what was said in the description. Unfortunately, that description greatly exaggerates the podcast’s scope. 

The second podcast I tried to listen to was the Crucial Listening podcast #95: Victoria Shen (evicshen) podcast. I say tried because the examples of Shen’s work or at least the random interjections of sound at the start I had to skip. 

https://www.stitcher.com/show/crucial-listening/episode/95-victoria-shen-evicshen-90061814

These podcasts have a very different format The Sound of Life Itself podcast because the format is literally a podcast interview with audio bites of the interviewee’s work. The lower audio quality compared to the former podcast (as a result of it probably being a glorified zoom call during the pandemic) which is then juxtaposed with the high-quality audio bites makes me feel that it’s a very amateur podcast. The irony is that it’s made by sound artists, but I understand the restrictions that make that unavoidable. 

I really enjoyed the interview section of this podcast, even if I could not understand a lot of it. It reminded me of the visiting lecture series we have on our course, but here you get to hear the real excitement of the artist when they talk non-stop about their work and the technicalities of their upcoming pieces and also how they feel about the things that have happened and are happening to them as an artist. It’s truly inspiring to see an artist nerd out about what they do. 

Victoria Shen mainly talks about the technical aspects of her 3 albums and the context behind them, so if I was actually interested in the artist herself it would have helped me stay interested. The podcast is quite relatable as Victoria Shen is around one or 2 steps ahead of myself in an artist journey instead of the heights that I’m used to with the visiting lecturers.

Again, Crucial Listening podcast #95: Victoria Shen (evicshen) doesn’t really make me think “audio paper” as it’s just a pure-blooded podcast instead of a more obvious podcast/sound documentary hybrid like The Sound of Life Itself. This does mean that my understanding of what an audio paper hasn’t really been improved upon other than the fact that I have consumed more examples of what an audio paper could be. 

Nonetheless, both podcasts were informative and interesting to listen to in their own rights, just with the amount of content one consumes in daily life I do wonder if I will even remember these podcasts at the end of this assignment. 

In this blog, I’ll be reflecting on the assessment for this module and the first lesson of said module. 

The first paragraph of the brief states, “This unit develops critical awareness of the primary themes which emerge from sound art and global sonic culture in the 21st century by focusing on the creation of an audio paper, introducing a practice-based route towards the third-year research project as an alternative to the traditional written dissertation format.”  

In my first year, the most interesting thing about the course was learning about the audio paper alternative to the written dissertation in the third year. It makes sense to have an auditory format for the dissertation in a sound arts course and I’ve had many ideas for it over the past year; however, I still don’t actually know what it is. 

To start/complete this assignment I have three questions to answer: 

• What is an Audio Paper? 
• What topic or statement do I want to base the paper on? 
• What will the audio paper sound like? 

So, what is an audio paper? My initial suspicion of what it is (based on the brief) is a literal 1-to-1 recreation of a written dissertation in an auditory format. Thinking more about that, I’ve realised that my inference doesn’t make sense. 

In our first lesson on the topic, I personally don’t think that it was made any clearer. We were shown soundscapes, electroacoustic music, memes, live performances and sonic journalism. This confusion on what an audio paper is is also shown on the slide where the class chipped in to answer the question “What is Sound Studies?”. There were so many different answers that are all valid in their own way because the subject of the question is too ambiguous to properly define.  

Of course “Sound Studies” has a definition that has substance, but the same cannot be said for the audio paper. The audio paper is still being defined and is slowly being defined by things that call themselves audio papers. This leads to the obvious problem that as long as something is in a WAV or MP3 format, it can call itself an audio paper.  

There is one last link on the first week moodle, which is the Audio Papers – a manifesto article by Sanne Krogh Groth and Kristine Samson on the Seismograf website. While there is a lot to unpack in the article, it would be more prudent to talk more about this topic later as after looking at the content in this module, a reflection of that manifesto comes up in a later week. 

While I do still wonder what an audio paper isn’t, as apparently, it can be practically anything one would do on a sound arts course, it is exciting to be one of the people who gets to dictate what an audio paper is on this course (kind of like how case law works in law). I still have my other two questions to answer but I’ll talk more about them in later blog posts.