Ethics

One thing this collaboration pushed me to think about more concretely is the professional context that sound artists actually work in, and what it means to bring your own practice into contact with someone else’s creative vision.

Working with the CSM group meant operating as something closer to a commissioned sound designer than a sole author. I was brought in to respond to their conceptual framework and realise something sonically that served the piece without dissolving my own approach into it.

Something I mentioned earlier in the blog are my feelings around AI imagery. As someone working in creative arts, questions about generative AI are ones I’ll continue to encounter. This project gave me an early experience of holding a professional objection to something while still committing to the collaboration, which is a position I’ll need to be able to navigate with more confidence in future.

More broadly, working with performance students made visible some of the professional networks that exist between sound and live performance. Costume designers, movement directors, and other roles are potential collaborators for a sound artist working outside of purely music contexts. The project has made me more aware of how sound functions within interdisciplinary performance work, and more curious about that as a direction. My practice is currently rooted in electronic music and noise, but this collaboration has shown me that those tools translate into live performance contexts in ways I hadn’t fully considered.