Listening through technology: Toward a hybrid aurality practice

This research project investigates the role of sound within XR (augmented reality, virtual reality, alternate reality) and location-aware media while considering creative practice as research through the creation of two sound-based location-aware media pieces for exhibition (Strathroy Stories and Thing of Shapes to Come). This project aims to build upon, and bridge the work of scholars and artists working in the disciplines of sound studies, creative practice for XR, and sound and music for media. By tracing a history of technologically mediated sound within artistic practices, traditional and new media, cultural and community practice, and everyday experience I hope to unearth a deeper understanding of the role that technology plays as an interlocutor in our experience of listening. The central questions that this dissertation asks concern the ways in which technologically mediated sound shapes the experience of both XR and everyday listening. By discussing the history, current state, and potential future of technologically mediated sound in culture, media, and art this dissertation hopes to address areas that will contribute to the existing body of literature and artistic practice in sound studies and sound art.