Nausea: An Approach to Sonic Arts Composition Based on ASC

This paper concerns research in the field of compositional methods for electroacoustic music. I discuss the compositional approach used for creating ‘Nausea’: a large-scale work of electroacoustic music presented in surround sound. The piece is part of a larger body of creative work in sonic arts carried out as part of the author’s PhD research. These works explore the use of altered states of consciousness (ASC) as a basis for the design of sonic materials and structure. Sounds are created to reflect aspects of a hypothetical psychedelic experience, such as visual patterning effects or hallucinated entities. These sounds are then arranged in a manner that suitably reflects the progression of a typical psychedelic experience. Through discussion of the compositional methodology used, it is intended to demonstrate how ASC can be used to inform the design of sonic artworks. It is anticipated that this research will also contribute more generally to knowledge of possible approaches for the design of digital artworks that represent ASC. The emphasis of this paper is on the compositional process, and does not attempt to measure audience response to the music. Similarly, the process described should be seen as appropriate, but not absolute; implementations of this method involving slightly different subjective artistic judgements would be possible within the general framework discussed.