Louie Bourne Sound Arts Blog

  • Faceless Voices

    Nobody is anonymous online, however there is a face value of anonymity that comes with having a username and a profile picture that people find different to the anonymity that can be created in the physical world. “von Hirsch has argued that expectations of anonymity, meaning nonidentifiability, protect a sense of dignity and autonomy as…

  • Street Photography

    “The main ethical problem with this form of street photography relates to the subject’s vanity and sense of self. When street photographers produce and publish images without the consent of subjects, they express their own creative freedom at the expense of the subject’s right to editorial control.”  The subject of the picture wants control of…

  • DIY Electronics

    Since the turn of the 20th century, the world of DIY electronics in the west has evolved into a subculture that promotes the sharing of ideas and resources, the sharing of knowledge created relatively accessible means for musicians to develop their own technologies, the creation of these technologies made by musicians has created and helped…

  • Sonic Toys

    When the interface for music becomes collaborative “the interaction between the players becomes equally if not more important than the interaction between player and the interface. The technology recedes as the primary focus and becomes more a catalyst for social interaction.” (Robson, D, PLAY! : Sound Toys For The Non Musical, NIME). The idea of…

  • The Toy Market

    The Stylophone rose to popularity in the early 70s not just in musician’s circles but within toy culture as well, “This is largely attributable to its introduction on TV by Rolf Harris, its use in the song that launched David Bowie’s career, “Space Oddity,” and its appearance in a popular TV series “The Avengers”. Three…

  • Sustainability

    The materials I am using for this project are not as sustainable as they could be, this is something I aim to improve on in future projects. My current materials are electronic components, a PCB board, Wood, Plastic speakers. I am preparing to make this change in my process by researching sustainable alternatives to PCB…

  • Soldering

    I have always felt fulfilled by making things using my hands and intricate processes, during my early teens I would often attend pottery workshops with my granddad, a leather worker. I felt fulfilled by learning the skills to create something physical that could sit in the home. I also have an interest in guitar pedals…

  • Collaborative Instruments

    Instruments being created for non musical people supports the idea that sound should be accessible for everybody, having instruments that don’t heavily rely on technique helps eradicate the ownership that musicians have over sound, “Making collaborative interfaces relatively simple and easy to learn facilitates flow for novices.” (Blaine, T, Fels, S, Contexts Of Collaborative Musical…

  • The absence of music and using music for narrative

    I recently visited the cinema to watch “The Old Oak” by Ken Loach, a very real story about community in an ex miners town in the north of England. The sound in this film made me realise how evocative the absence of music can be when applied correctly in a film. There are three instances…

  • Why not use PureData?

    During this section of the course I have experimented with PureData within lectures and outside of lectures, I have created basic synthesisers and sequencers and have found the process of learning how to code using pure data interesting. What I didn’t like about pure data was the lack of physicality, I wanted to be learning…