J. Milo Taylor (April-May 2012)
Is an intermedia artist and academic researcher whose current interests are located around notions of affect, immersivity, memory and loss. He currently holds a position as Research Fellow in Interactive Systems at the University of Sussex (UK). His work has been presented internationally and has often involved interdisciplinary collaboration, sound and variable medias. Particular tropes in his practice include sound, improvisation, virtual environments, interactivity and archives.
His recent research has been directed towards the re-mediation and re-activation of experimental European sound practice in both historical and contemporary senses. While digital media facilitates the integration of previously distinct formats, this flattening can be healthily problematicised. A central part of the proposed research is to explore the multitude of meanings the SONM archive presents to contemporary audiences.
RESEARCH
The scope of the planned research, while dependant upon the specific and idiosyncratic nature of the SONM archive itself will seek to trace the “sonic wayfaring” undertaken by Francisco López in his 30 years of extraordinary creative activity. López’s travels offer an unique insight into the locations, organisations, medias, individuals and collectives that have participated in the continuing development of a (non-academic) art of sound.
It is my intuition that the material contained in the SONM archive will offer contemporary audiences a personal, and practice-based “contra-archive” which, I hope, can challenge the official, top down canon as proposed by Anglo-American academic discourse. This potential, I suggest, is both timely and essential for a reinvigoration of the debates surrounding sound art practices in 21st century Europe and beyond. My research will take place and will spread its results within the context of a European project I am closely involved with, called “Opensound”, which includes seven European sound art organisations: Apo33 (FR), Piksel (NO), Antitesi (IT), Audiolab Arteleku (ES), Granular (PT), Modus (UK) and NK (DE).
