December 2022 – Jacob’s blog

Audio Paper Finalization

When creating the audio paper I ran in to a lot of problems. I did not like the layout of the paper as it seemed to random and sporadic, because of this I had to rewrite the script many times to make the lay-out perfect. I found myself repeating myself a lot and had to cut down on most of the text. I chose to use text-to-speech for the main body of the paper as I felt like it fit the virtual theme very well. I found it hard to get the amount of sound effects right as it was very easy to feel as if I was going too overboard with them.

Audio Paper Promotion

Are you interested in electronic music and enjoy meeting new people? Do you find it hard to muster the courage to go out by yourself clubbing? Virtual Reality is the future of going out and can be enjoyed from the comfort of your home, you can meet people from every part of the world and interact with them without having to show or reveal your identity, you can be whoever you want. This audio paper gives an insight into the underground culture of virtual reality nightlife and shows you what it’s all about.

Research into Audio Papers and Composition.

Audio papers 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. The audio paper is an extension of the written paper through its specific use of media, a sonic awareness of aesthetics and materiality, and creative approach towards communication. The audio paper is a performative format working together with an affective and elaborate understanding of language. It is an experiment embracing intellectual arguments and creative work, papers and performances, written scholarship and sonic aesthetics.

The audio paper is never conventional, as it always incorporates an awareness of the processes of research and technological production. It not only reflects its own research question/s, but reflects the reflection itself: the process of knowledge-production, the presentation and representation of language and voice, the narrative and dramaturgy, and the aesthetics of sound.

What is an Audio Paper?

I am starting to laydown the basis for my composition and kind of know how I want it to be set out. I am going to first take the listener through a description of what happens once you join a virtual server, I am then going to explain and describe virtual reality events and why they happen/why they are needed. I am then going to use the interviews in the end to give a insight into the community.

Vicky Browne

Vicky Browne works mainly with installation and uses everyday objects such as walkmans, iPods, clothing and furniture to comment on Western systems of consumption and networked relationships to ecologies.

Her work has made me think about how I could possibly present my work in a space.

First Hand Research

Today I attended a TUBE x Conduit event, the event was small but it was still a very good insight into the VR rave culture. TUBE and Conduit are two of the biggest promoters in the scene so this gave me a good idea of what the bigger events are like. I was at first confused about getting into the rave as there were two venues within the world and I kept going to the wrong one, so I asked for help from a fellow player who showed me how to get to the rave. The room the event was held in was a small dark room in the shape of a triangle that had lights on the walls that could be customised to your liking or turned off if you are sensitive to flashing lights. There were visuals in-front and behind of the DJ which I presume the DJ had set up before hand. The players in the event were mostly anime-esque characters that looked straight out of IMVU, they seemed like they were very engaged in the event and didn’t want to be bothered by me. The music that was played was mostly drum and bass with a bit of breakcore thrown in.

Audio Paper – Process, Recording

I chose to use the text to speech from naturalreaders.com as I liked the way that the speech sounded natural and organic and was not robot like. I was met with a pay wall when trying to export the file as an mp3 so I paid and exported it. My main goal was to cut up this text and warp it to make it sound more interesting. I would also add sound effects to the project and have a slight backing track. My idea was to make it sound as if you were in the bathroom of a virtual rave while listening, the music was not going to be loud but instead muffled and filtered. I would take music from soundcloud sets that were performed in VR.