Vickery, L. and James, S. (2019). Representations of Decay in the Works of Cat Hope, Tempo, 73(287) January 2019 , pp. 18-32.

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This article considers the ‘representation of decay’ in selected concert works by the Australian composer Cat Hope. It draws on a mixed-method research methodology, comparing the conceptual aspects of Hope's oeuvre with analyses of studio and live recordings of Hope's work and discussing how such ideas of ‘decay’ may play out in the sonic world. Two forms of spectral analysis are employed: firstly the analysis of spectral parameters roughness, noisiness, brightness, pitch, and centroid, and secondly a visualisation of the music as a spectrogram. The data for the spectral analyses are derived from Alexander Harker's spectral descriptor tools for MaxMSP which record a value for each parameter every 25 milliseconds. At times, values are normalised within a range of 0 and 1, as representative of how listeners experience parametrical changes (i.e. dynamics, in relative terms rather than absolutes in relation to other sounds in the work). Importantly, perception of noisiness is more acute at frequencies in which the auditory critical bands are wider, below 250 Hz (roughly below middle C), precisely the upper range specified by Hope to define instruments suitable for the Australian Bass Orchestra.

Wyatt, A., Vickery, L. and James, S. (2019). Unlocking the Decibel Scoreplayer, Tenor 2019, Monash University.

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This paper discusses recent developments in the Decibel ScorePlayer project, including the introduction of a canvas mode, python ScorePlayer externals and enhancements of the ScoreCreator application. The canvas mode allows for other applications (like MaxMSP) to send drawing commands to the player via OSC. An object model has been developed to allow for the creation of hierarchies of drawn objects, the commands that can be used to create and control these, and the way in which scores can be developed to take advantage of this new mode. A python scoreplayer-external library has been created, defining two python classes: scorePlayerExternal that makes a connection to the iPad, opening a UDP listening socket and letting the iPad know which port to send its replies to and scoreObject which is designed to represent the objects that populate the canvas. It acts as a wrapper to the raw OSC commands so that programming can be done using object-oriented paradigms. The scoreCreator application (OS X) has been expanded to include support for defining a range of score types and functionalities.

Moses, A., and Vickery, L.  (2019).  Sisters Akousmatica’s ‘Expanded Radio’ practice As  Radical Feminist Broadcast,  ​Australasian Computer Music Conference 2019, Monash University.

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Sisters Akousmatica is a collaborative transmission arts project launched by Tasmanian sound artists Phillipa Stafford and Julia Drouhin in 2016, concerned with‘promoting women and gender diverse voices in public space’, working in the medium of ‘expanded radio’. Their practice involves large scale public transmission projects, hidden radio broadcasts, transmitter building workshops with women and children, and written research, exploring the potential of emergent art forms to support, promote and cultivate socio-cultural and gender minorities in the field of sound arts. This paper investigatesthe ‘expanded radio’medium, and how it may enable Sisters Akousmatica, women and gender diverse folks to reimagine the cultural space of radio through alternative discourses. The discussion will consider issues of gender informed by the feminist theories of Hélène Cixous, and feminist musicology theories of Susan McClary. Considering the paucity of empirical and theoretical study regarding women, feminism and broadcast, thispaper contributes to the understanding of feminist radio practice, and offers suggestions of the possibilities of ‘expanded radio’as a model of radical feminist broadcast.