[ecrea] CFP: Journal of Sonic Studies - new deadline

Call for Papers

Journal of Sonic Studies - Special Issue: Sound design

Deadline: August 1, 2013

Contact: (noise /at/ sonicstudies.org) <mailto:(noise /at/ sonicstudies.org)>

    Although sound is a natural phenomenon, many sounds in our cultural 
environment are designed by humans. Street signs make use of specific 
acoustic signals, kitchen appliances are tweaked in such a way that they 
produce sounds that users of these devices are expected to hear, car 
doors are supposed to make a particular sound when they are closed, a 
sound that conveys solidity, safety, and quality to the driver of that 
car. Often, these sounds are not produced as a result of the mechanical 
and electrical processes that are necessary for a correct functioning of 
the device. Instead, they are designed and added in order to enhance the 
aesthetic experience of operating the device, or to improve its ease of 
use.

Sonic environments, too, are often designed. Sound is used to demarcate 
place, to invite people, or to exclude certain individuals. Also, sound 
can influence people's mental state, to calm them, to excite them, to 
convince them to stay longer and spend more. This is one of the reasons 
why sound design is important in games and cinema as well. The veracity 
and convincing power of the virtual environments created within these 
media can be greatly enhanced through a proper design of the sounds that 
can be heard. In short, perhaps even more so than visual objects, sound 
is capable of manipulating human subjects.

In the sixth issue of the /Journal of Sonic Studies/ we would like to 
explore these, and other, instances of sound design. We invite papers 
that explain specific practices of sound design, written by sound 
designers themselves, as well as essays that critically examine the use 
of sound in urban environments, devices, movies, etc. We are even more 
interested to receive contributions that not only deal with sound design 
in one way or another, but are also themselves designed in new, 
surprising and perhaps even irritating ways. As it is an e-journal, the 
/Journal of Sonic Studies/ allows for many conventional and 
unconventional ways to represent ideas on sound design, both in words, 
sounds, and images.
Potential contributors are invited to submit completed essays by August 
1, 2013.

For more information, or to submit an essay, please visit 
http://www.sonicstudies.org or contact (noise /at/ sonicstudies.org) 
<mailto:(noise /at/ sonicstudies.org)>

Editors of this issue: Elif Ozcan, Marcel Cobussen, Vincent Meelberg