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The Research Centre for Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice (CRiSAP) works to develop, extend and support the emerging disciplinary field of sound arts, and has played a role in defining, scoping and shaping contemporary sound arts practice. This case study demonstrates impact on the creative community, museums and galleries, and the general public, with work reaching a wide audience and developing a greater recognition and understanding of sound and sound arts.
Research-informed sound sculpture practice demonstrates cultural life, public discourse and economic benefits that can be evidenced by the highly successful `Siren' by current British Composer of the year for Sonic Art Ray Lee. Following its initial performance in 2004, since 2008 `Siren' has been performed more than 120 times across the world at key venues such as Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, USA and the Melbourne International Arts Festival that collectively generated £124,051 in fee income. The work has left a significant record of its presence through social and new media, but also continues to develop and demonstrate further impacts through a new piece by Ray Lee `Chorus'.
This case study demonstrates how new approaches to collaborative sonic arts lead to increased awareness of the role of sound and its relationship to place in everyday life. This new understanding of the aural world resulted in the preservation and presentation of past and present cultural heritage specific to two intergenerational participating communities. The impact of the research is specifically articulated through a community project and exhibition entitled "Sounds of the City" commissioned by the new Metropolitan Arts Centre (Belfast) and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2012.
In research that challenges the dichotomy of music/ noise, Drever has investigated the properties and subjective effects of the high volumes produced by ultrafast hand dryers, finding that it is highly aversive for vulnerable groups including people with dementia, sensory impairments, and autistic spectrum disorders, in some cases exacerbating their social avoidance. These effects have been communicated to the public, industry professionals, and policymakers through a combination of creative art works and presentations of the research findings in varied public settings. They have been widely reported in the international media, via both general interest and specialist publications and programmes. He has worked closely with the UK's Noise Abatement Society and with industrial designers, who have welcomed his input to helping them improve hand dryer design.
Theoretical and experimental research on urban sound environments has been carried out by Professor Kang and his team at the University of Sheffield since 1999. This includes acoustic theories and models for urban sound propagation, soundscape theory and framework, and acoustic theories for sustainable building elements. Consequently, they have developed design guides/ tools that have become common standards in professional practice; invented sustainable low-noise products that have led to commercial outputs; organised networks and workshops that have set up the practice agenda for designing better urban sound environments; and delivered keynote presentations to international audiences of planning professionals and government policy-making organisations.
David Hendy's 30-part series for BBC Radio 4 (broadcast March-April 2013) and the accompanying book, Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening, have had two main impacts. In offering a widely disseminated history of sound that places social history at its centre, Noise stimulated public discussion about, and public and personal appreciation of, the role of sound and listening in history and contemporary life, especially with regard to contemporary attitudes to what is and is not counted as noise. Hendy's research on Noise has also materially contributed towards the creation of new artistic artefacts and national cultural resources by supporting and inspiring further creative commissions in sound and in bequeathing to the British Library a new permanent holding of field-recordings.
In response to many EU directives (e.g. 89/629/EEC, 2002/30/EC), and to the threat of financial penalties, the aircraft industry has long considered it a matter of the utmost importance to develop tools for the reduction of aircraft noise. Chapman's ray theory of aeroengine noise, created and developed in 1994-2000, provided such a tool. The impact of this work has extended through aircraft industry giants such as Rolls-Royce to consumers and the general public worldwide, because of its influence on the design of quieter aircraft.
Following application of the same theory to broadband underwater acoustics, the impact now extends to the government's plans for the next generation of nuclear submarines. This is a £25 billion project to design and build the Successor class, to replace the Vanguard class of Trident submarines. Chapman's ray theory has been used in the current Assessment Phase leading to Main Gate in 2016, when the Government will decide on production.
Sound Diaries impacts through expanding awareness of the roles of sound and listening in daily life. The Sound Diaries website acts as a repository, sketchpad and sandpit for research promoting a principally auditory investigation of the world we live in. Exploring the cultural and communal significance of sounds, Sound Diaries forms a research basis for projects executed both locally and Internationally, in Beijing, Brussels, Tallinn, rural Estonia and Cumbria; within local institutions in Oxford including Schools; and within cultural organisations such as Sound and Music, BBC Radio, Boring 2011 and MoDA (Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture).
The development of a new compositional tool for electroacoustic music (using technology to explore, create and perform sounds not limited to traditional instrumental sources) based on visual shapes has generated new ways of thinking that influence creative practice, and has inspired and supported new forms of artistic expression. New musical outputs composed by Dr Manuella Blackburn, generated from using the tool, have enriched the lives, imaginations and sensibilities of individuals and groups, locally and internationally. Parallel to this, the tool has been implemented in a number of educational situations (including workshops and textbooks) ranging from school-aged learners (11-18) to university undergraduate students, beyond Liverpool Hope University as the submitting HEI.
Organ of Corti is an experimental instrument by David Prior (Associate Prof. Falmouth University) and Frances Crow that filters the sound around it into new listening experiences. Winner of the `Performing Rights Society (PRS) for Music Foundation's New Music Award' in 2010, Organ of Corti toured England in the summer of 2011. The piece was presented in partnership with nationally recognised regional music festivals reaching an estimated audience of over 400,000 during its tour, both live and via National and International media coverage [Section: 5, Ref:14-23].
Organ of Corti has received recognition from a number of International awards within the disciplines of new music, acoustics and technology [Section: 5, Ref 10-12]. The project has contributed to research within the areas of meta-materials, policy implementation on `soundscape design' and new ways of listening [Section 5, Ref: 5-9]. Organ of Corti has received planning permission for a permanent sound sculpture on the banks of the river Severn in Worcester [Section: 5, Ref: 25].