Sonic self: materialising selfhood through creative sonification practices

itinerant space: a journal of art, design and communication research practices, is an experimental online platform for doctoral researchers at RCA.

Editor-in-chief: Professor Teal Triggs
Founding editors: Nick Bell, Karen Bosy, Kirsty Smith
Editors, Issue 3: Nick Bell, Kam Rehal, Yunqi Peng

Contact: itinerant.space@rca.ac.uk
itinerant space, School of Communication, Royal College of Art, Garden House, Dorando Close, London W12 7FN

Peer review panel, Issue 3:
Nick Bell, Kam Rehal, Yunqi Peng (School of Communication)

Website design: Regular Practice.
Site development: Mads Kullberg

Contributor Biographies

Issues

Issue 3 is anticipatory.
The theme for Issue 3 is anticipatory practice and suggests that research is never static nor fixed. It operates in motion, is expectant, if not enthusiastic. For example, anticipatory research necessitates foresight and an understanding of consequences. The work contained within this Issue 3 is research-in-progress, which anticipates for example, the multifarious ways in which the work might be developed, resolved, or might play in opening new lines of inquiry.

As a process, anticipatory practice fosters approaches that instil ‘an openness to be imagined’. This is not about speculation, rather anticipatory research is future-facing and holds the potential for revealing ways of how we navigate an increasingly complex set of contexts, challenges, and interactions.

‘In conversation. We posit – what it could be.’ – Teal Triggs

‘Anticipatory practice is imagining the future. It also means responding to the contradictions that emerge when imagination meets reality in practice. Every unexpected outcome that accompanies anticipatory practice is an opportunity for both surprise and reflection, as it hints at a thoughtful yet entirely new direction.’ – Yunqi Peng

‘Through the doing of research, we anticipate how our contributions might be understood / challenged / further expanded by the work of others.’ – Kam Rehal

‘Inclusive cross-community communication is an anticipatory practice in which social infrastructure emerges – a web of connections and relationships between neighbours, community gatekeepers, organisations and institutions – through which the challenges, opportunities and conditions of future change can be better anticipated.’ – Nick Bell

The Editorial Team would like to thank the eight contributors whose research extracts feature in this issue. The breadth of their subject matter, with the diversity of approaches to project work, predicts the exciting potential for research conversations in the making.

Sonic self: materialising selfhood through creative sonification practices
Bryan Yueshen Wu

Project overview —

In today’s age, how do we listen to ourselves through introspective engagement, and how might this listening be translated back into sound? I approach this twofold sonic inquiry as a form of self-sonification. In this project entitled Sonified, drawing from a sonic auto-ethnographic approach, I construct a sonic experience in two layers: a background improvisational soundscape, composed from field recordings of my sound walks and presented through monitor speakers; and a sonic disruption, delivered via monitor headphones, generated by an AI real-time audio encoder trained on short social media video reels—my primary mode of self-entertainment. The videos I scroll through and engage with shape the platform’s recommendation algorithm, which in turn influences my daily listening patterns. Over time, these reels become a kind of ‘digital avatar.’ Through this juxtaposition, I aim to create a multi-dimensional auditory exploration of selfhood that reveals both the externalised and internalised facets of my existence. The work examines the shifting boundaries between self, sound, and society, and reflects on how individuality is continually constructed through these mediated sonic interactions.

Biography

Bryan Yueshen Wu is a new media and sound artist based in London. With a background in industrial design and experience design, he is currently pursuing a PhD in Communication Research at the Royal College of Art, focusing on creative sonification practices. Bryan’s practice encompasses sound design, sonic experiences, interactive sound programming, audio-visual performance, and electronic music production, with a particular emphasis on soundscape composition and ambient music.

His works have been performed and exhibited at prominent events such as Dubai Design Week, London Digital Design Weekend (V&A Museum), and the IRCAM Workshop (Centre Pompidou). They have also been showcased in diverse venues, including Ars Electronica Deep Space, Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB), and Iklectik Art Lab.

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