[Leonardo/ISAST Network] Leonardo/OLATS Honors Michael Bullock with Leonardo-EMS Award

[Leonardo/ISAST]

The second Leonardo-EMS Award was given to Michael Bullock, a young 
researcher from Troy, NY who gave a presentation during EMS08 (the 
annual conference of the Electroacoustic Music Studies Network) which 
was held this year in Paris, France. After deliberation, the jury, 
composed of Marc Battier (France), Ricardo Dal Farra (Argentina) and 
Kenneth Fields (Canada/China), selected Bullock's paper titled "Noise to 
Signal: Consumer electronics and the rise of underground 
electro-acoustic scenes." Of all the papers presented by young 
researchers, Michael's was outstanding by its originality, clarity and 
insight. Besides his academic research at Troy's Rensselaer Polytechnic 
Institute, Bullock performs experimental music with his bass and with 
electronics. He is as active and innovative in his playing than in his 
research. Bullock's paper will be posted on the Leonardo website and 
will also be published in an upcoming issue of Leonardo Journal (TBA).
 
The EMS Network was organized to fill an important gap in terms of 
electroacoustic music, namely focusing on the better understanding of 
the various manifestations of electroacoustic music. Areas related to 
the study of electroacoustic music range from the musicological to more 
interdisciplinary approaches, from studies concerning the impact of 
technology on musical creativity to the investigation of the ubiquitous 
nature of electroacoustic sounds today. The choice of the word, 
"network" is of fundamental importance as one of the goals of the EMS 
Network is to make relevant initiatives more widely available. More 
about the Electroacoustic Music Studies Network can be found at 
http://www.ems-network.org.

Leonardo/OLATS has established a collaboration with the EMS network 
through which annual Leonardo-EMS Awards for Excellence are made for the 
best contribution to the EMS symposium by a young researcher as decided 
by a joint jury.
 
The following is the abstract of Bullock's paper presented at EMS08:
 
Michael T. Bullock
Noise to Signal: Consumer electronics and the rise of underground 
electro-acoustic scenes
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - Department of the Arts, Troy (USA)
 
The growth of a consumer-electronics culture in the home -- especially 
audio electronics since World War II, and Internet technology since 
circa 1990 -- has led to a radical reorientation of the means and site 
of music production. Broadcast and recording technology gave to 
musicians and non-musicians alike the means to create and embody sound 
when and where they desired; it also raised awareness of noise as 
idiomatic to audio technology and to recordings. Audio technologies 
became instrumentalized when they became recognized as sounding bodies 
beyond simply archives of previous sound. Eventually, this elevation of 
noise and instrumentalization of electronics were reapplied to extended 
techniques on traditional instruments, and developed a new form musical 
engagement: self-idiomatic improvised music.
 
I make a distinction among four general categories of extended 
instrumental use in modern music and sound. The first three are: 
extended technique on "traditional" instruments; instrumentalization of 
audio electronics; and creation of entirely new musical instruments (for 
this paper we'll focus on electronic and electro-acoustic instruments). 
The fourth category cuts across the other three categories and addresses 
a radical realignment of the site of music and sound: the creation of 
sound environments.
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