Sonic Rupture: A Practice-led Approach to Urban ­Soundscape Design

Sonic Rupture applies a practitioner-led approach to urban soundscape design, which foregrounds the importance of creative encounters in global cities. This presents an alternative to those urban soundscape design approaches concerned with managing the negative health impacts of noise. Instead, urban noise is considered to be a creative material and cultural expression that can be reshaped with citywide networks of sonic installations.

By applying affect theory the urban is imagined as an unfolding of the Affective Earth, and noise as its homogenous (and homogenizing) voice. It is argued that noise is an expressive material with which sonic practitioners can interface, to increase the creative possibilities of urban life. At the heart of this argument is the question of relationships: how do we augment and diversify those interconnections that weave together the imaginative life and the expressions of the land?

The book details seven sound installations completed by the author as part of a creative practice research process, in which the sonic rupture model was discovered. The sonic rupture model, which aims to diversify human experiences and urban environments, encapsulates five soundscape design approaches and ten practitioner intentions. Multiple works of international practitioners are explored in relation to the discussed approaches.

Sonic Rupture provides the domains of sound art, music, creative practice, urban design, architecture and environmental philosophy with a unique perspective for understanding those affective forces, which shape urban life. The book also provides a range of practical and conceptual tools for urban soundscape design that can be applied by the sonic practitioner.