Sonic Publics

What do we gain from public exposure to sound and how can audio be used to create urban environments that connect with the public?

Sonic Publics addresses the public presentation of sound. Audio is installed in industrial-scaled art galleries, tower lobbies, hospitals and concert hall foyers. Taking numerous forms, from compositions accompanying light environments to music designed to comfort visitors in office lobbies, audio arts presented in this way expands and shifts contemporary notions of public and private space. Sonic publics have grown rapidly, exposed knowingly or unknowingly to audio arts through large festivals focused on displays that fill their environments with sound and light to commercial environments that have placed large-scale screens and sound systems in entrance spaces.

Sonic publics, as presented in this forum, form across situations; visitors’ unheard energies are made sonic, apps such as Spotify and YouTube present algorithmically manipulated music to the public—at once diversifying and standardising music, and synthesised music is played to children in hospitals.

This forum, with its focus on the presentness of sound, asks a crucial question: What do we gain from public exposure to sound, and how can audio be used to create urban environments that connect with the public in a human-centred manner?

SPEAKERS

Chair: Associate Professor Caleb Kelly, UNSW School of Art & Design

Dr Adam Hulbert, UNSW School of the Arts & Media

Dr Tom Smith, UNSW School of the Arts & Media / UNSW School of Art & Design graduate

Dr Pia van Gelder, ANU School of Art & Design / UNSW School of Art & Design graduate

This forum will also be livestreamed: https://unsw.zoom.us/j/89794965569
Wednesday, August 7, 12 - 2pm AEST
UNSW Art & Design Paddington

part of the 2024 Research Forum examining the key research undertaken at the UNSW School of Art & Design
info via Sonic Publics ticketing site