Books by SUK-JUN KIM
Humming is a ubiquitous and mundane act many of us perform. The fact that we often hum to ourselv... more Humming is a ubiquitous and mundane act many of us perform. The fact that we often hum to ourselves, to family members, or to close friends suggests that humming is a personal, intimate act. It can also be a powerful way in which people open up to others and share collective memories. In religious settings such as Tibetan chanting, humming offers a mesmerising sonic experience. Then there are hums that resound regardless of human activity, such as the hums of impersonal objects and man-made or natural phenomena.
The first sound studies book to explores the topic of humming, Humming offers a unique examination of the polarising categories of hums, from hums that are performed only to oneself, that are exercised in religious practice, that claim healing, and that resonate with our bodies, to hums that can drive people to madness, that emanate from cities and towns, and that resound in the universe. By acknowledging the quirkiness of hums within the established discourse in sound studies, Humming takes a truly interdisciplinary view on this familiar yet less-trodden sonic concept in sound studies.
Papers by SUK-JUN KIM
The sounds we associate with particular places are tightly interwoven with our memories and sense... more The sounds we associate with particular places are tightly interwoven with our memories and sense of belonging. We describe a platform designed to assist in gathering the sounds a group of people associate with a place. A web-based evolutionary algorithm, with human-in-the-loop fitness evaluations, ranks and recombines sounds to find collections that the group rates as familiar. An experiment covering four geographical locations shows that the process does indeed find sounds deemed familiar by participants.
Aiming at examining Schaefferian phenomenology from the viewpoint of phenomenology proper, and in... more Aiming at examining Schaefferian phenomenology from the viewpoint of phenomenology proper, and in particular, critically observing how successfully Schaeffer understood the workings of key phenomenology concepts and applied them to his research on sound objects and listening, this paper conducts a short survey on the relationship between natural and phenomenological attitudes as well as the concept and implications of phenomenological reduction understood by phenomenology proper as well as by Schaefferian phenomenology. The survey shows that, while Schaefferian phenomenology rightly—and timely—recognized the acousmatic situation, or more accurately, acousmatic attitude, as the phenomenological attitude under which our listening experience can be investigated phenomenologically, it misunderstood the workings of phenomenological reduction and employed only part of it. Consequently, as this essay argues, Schaefferian phenomenology limited the totality of listening phenomena to its part, thus endangering the phenomenological project that it set out to do.
Keywords: phenomenology; Pierre Schaeffer; acousmatic; reduced listening; listening phenomena; phenomenological reduction; epoché; natural and phenomenological attitudes
Organised Sound, Jan 1, 2010
Conference Presentations by SUK-JUN KIM
One characteristic of a typical electroacoustic concert, which sets listeners’ experience uniquel... more One characteristic of a typical electroacoustic concert, which sets listeners’ experience uniquely apart from that of a traditional classical—instrumental—concert, is that listeners feel as if they were invited to the composer’s studio and were to witness his or her very act of making. The dramatic now-ness of happenings and the sense of assumed immediacy from the composer to the listener are sometime so compelling that listeners may even imagine as if they were participating in composing the piece they hear. This phenomenon is interesting as it shows that, in electroacoustic concerts, the composer’s studio becomes enlarged—that is, the concert venue turns into the composer’s own studio. While it appears to be natural (certainly exciting for some) and benign, the consequences of the transmutation of the concert hall into the large version of the composer’s studio are significant in the way listeners experience concert performances of electroacoustic music. This paper takes a view that by turning the concert venue into his or her own studio in these electroacoustic concerts, the composer effectively brings to the audience the so-called Studio aesthetics, which have been established from the beginnings of the historic studios in the 1950s onward. Designated as a set of compositional aesthetics or a particular set of attitudes toward composing (and, consequently, listening), which are borne out of the composer’s peculiar relationship with sound—and consequently with the lived world—that has been established in, and enhanced by, a studio, the Studio aesthetics have core elements, hinging on technical and artistic tendencies that are not
only revolutionary and state-of-the-art, but also traditional and conservative. However, the emergence and development of new technologies in the 80s and early 90s, which can be symbolised by personal computers like the Apple and the rise of numerous personal studios thanks to technical standardisations among major electronic instrument makers like MIDI and the development of new, portable, affordable, and personal audio equipment, has effectively questioned and challenged the Studio aesthetics. Today in the environment of electroacoustic composition, we witness the co-existence of the Studio aesthetics from the tradition of electroacoustic music and those which each individual composer brings to the studio.
The paper argues that the homogeneity of the relation between the composition and audience is mainly due to these Studio aesthetics, which, therefore, need to be examined. Accordingly, the paper discusses key properties of the Studio aesthetics, such as neutral, focal and hierarchical, detached, separated, and afloat from the lived world, reproducible, subtractive, fixed composer-listener relationship, and space- specific, and goes on to examine the consequences of the assumed Studio aesthetics. Furthermore, of all the consequences of the Studio aesthetics in relation to listeners’ experience of electroacoustic music at concert settings, this paper focuses on the issue of time experienced in listening as it is believed that listeners’ experience in typical electroacoustic concerts is largely conditioned by having been fixed, more than anything else, in time. The paper proposes taking time and taking place as two methodologies for deconstructing the Studio aesthetics, and consequently, listeners’ experience of electroacoustic music, and argues that by taking time, the composer’s ultimate goal would be to turn the venue for electroacoustic concerts from a space, which assumes to be ‘flat’ or ‘homogeneous’, into a place that offers the possibility of ‘singular’ listening experiences in time. To explore what taking time and taking place mean as methodologies, the paper discusses the Bachelard’s instant, the vertical time, which is a critical alternative to Bergson’s duration and the horizontal time as a consequence in relation to Casey’s glancing and gazing as a way of experiencing the world as a totality. Finally, the paper posits the workings of taking time and taking place by discussing "Being Persistently in Place 1: Union St., Aberdeen", the author’s cross-disciplinary project on place, to demonstrate how the ideas of the horizontal—vertical time taking and glancing-gazing might be performed or experienced in this sound art-performance piece, and also how they may have to do with the deconstruction of the Studio aesthetics.
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Books by SUK-JUN KIM
The first sound studies book to explores the topic of humming, Humming offers a unique examination of the polarising categories of hums, from hums that are performed only to oneself, that are exercised in religious practice, that claim healing, and that resonate with our bodies, to hums that can drive people to madness, that emanate from cities and towns, and that resound in the universe. By acknowledging the quirkiness of hums within the established discourse in sound studies, Humming takes a truly interdisciplinary view on this familiar yet less-trodden sonic concept in sound studies.
Papers by SUK-JUN KIM
Keywords: phenomenology; Pierre Schaeffer; acousmatic; reduced listening; listening phenomena; phenomenological reduction; epoché; natural and phenomenological attitudes
Conference Presentations by SUK-JUN KIM
only revolutionary and state-of-the-art, but also traditional and conservative. However, the emergence and development of new technologies in the 80s and early 90s, which can be symbolised by personal computers like the Apple and the rise of numerous personal studios thanks to technical standardisations among major electronic instrument makers like MIDI and the development of new, portable, affordable, and personal audio equipment, has effectively questioned and challenged the Studio aesthetics. Today in the environment of electroacoustic composition, we witness the co-existence of the Studio aesthetics from the tradition of electroacoustic music and those which each individual composer brings to the studio.
The paper argues that the homogeneity of the relation between the composition and audience is mainly due to these Studio aesthetics, which, therefore, need to be examined. Accordingly, the paper discusses key properties of the Studio aesthetics, such as neutral, focal and hierarchical, detached, separated, and afloat from the lived world, reproducible, subtractive, fixed composer-listener relationship, and space- specific, and goes on to examine the consequences of the assumed Studio aesthetics. Furthermore, of all the consequences of the Studio aesthetics in relation to listeners’ experience of electroacoustic music at concert settings, this paper focuses on the issue of time experienced in listening as it is believed that listeners’ experience in typical electroacoustic concerts is largely conditioned by having been fixed, more than anything else, in time. The paper proposes taking time and taking place as two methodologies for deconstructing the Studio aesthetics, and consequently, listeners’ experience of electroacoustic music, and argues that by taking time, the composer’s ultimate goal would be to turn the venue for electroacoustic concerts from a space, which assumes to be ‘flat’ or ‘homogeneous’, into a place that offers the possibility of ‘singular’ listening experiences in time. To explore what taking time and taking place mean as methodologies, the paper discusses the Bachelard’s instant, the vertical time, which is a critical alternative to Bergson’s duration and the horizontal time as a consequence in relation to Casey’s glancing and gazing as a way of experiencing the world as a totality. Finally, the paper posits the workings of taking time and taking place by discussing "Being Persistently in Place 1: Union St., Aberdeen", the author’s cross-disciplinary project on place, to demonstrate how the ideas of the horizontal—vertical time taking and glancing-gazing might be performed or experienced in this sound art-performance piece, and also how they may have to do with the deconstruction of the Studio aesthetics.
The first sound studies book to explores the topic of humming, Humming offers a unique examination of the polarising categories of hums, from hums that are performed only to oneself, that are exercised in religious practice, that claim healing, and that resonate with our bodies, to hums that can drive people to madness, that emanate from cities and towns, and that resound in the universe. By acknowledging the quirkiness of hums within the established discourse in sound studies, Humming takes a truly interdisciplinary view on this familiar yet less-trodden sonic concept in sound studies.
Keywords: phenomenology; Pierre Schaeffer; acousmatic; reduced listening; listening phenomena; phenomenological reduction; epoché; natural and phenomenological attitudes
only revolutionary and state-of-the-art, but also traditional and conservative. However, the emergence and development of new technologies in the 80s and early 90s, which can be symbolised by personal computers like the Apple and the rise of numerous personal studios thanks to technical standardisations among major electronic instrument makers like MIDI and the development of new, portable, affordable, and personal audio equipment, has effectively questioned and challenged the Studio aesthetics. Today in the environment of electroacoustic composition, we witness the co-existence of the Studio aesthetics from the tradition of electroacoustic music and those which each individual composer brings to the studio.
The paper argues that the homogeneity of the relation between the composition and audience is mainly due to these Studio aesthetics, which, therefore, need to be examined. Accordingly, the paper discusses key properties of the Studio aesthetics, such as neutral, focal and hierarchical, detached, separated, and afloat from the lived world, reproducible, subtractive, fixed composer-listener relationship, and space- specific, and goes on to examine the consequences of the assumed Studio aesthetics. Furthermore, of all the consequences of the Studio aesthetics in relation to listeners’ experience of electroacoustic music at concert settings, this paper focuses on the issue of time experienced in listening as it is believed that listeners’ experience in typical electroacoustic concerts is largely conditioned by having been fixed, more than anything else, in time. The paper proposes taking time and taking place as two methodologies for deconstructing the Studio aesthetics, and consequently, listeners’ experience of electroacoustic music, and argues that by taking time, the composer’s ultimate goal would be to turn the venue for electroacoustic concerts from a space, which assumes to be ‘flat’ or ‘homogeneous’, into a place that offers the possibility of ‘singular’ listening experiences in time. To explore what taking time and taking place mean as methodologies, the paper discusses the Bachelard’s instant, the vertical time, which is a critical alternative to Bergson’s duration and the horizontal time as a consequence in relation to Casey’s glancing and gazing as a way of experiencing the world as a totality. Finally, the paper posits the workings of taking time and taking place by discussing "Being Persistently in Place 1: Union St., Aberdeen", the author’s cross-disciplinary project on place, to demonstrate how the ideas of the horizontal—vertical time taking and glancing-gazing might be performed or experienced in this sound art-performance piece, and also how they may have to do with the deconstruction of the Studio aesthetics.