Editorial

Revisiting interdisciplinarity within collaborative sonic practice

Abstract

Over the past two decades, collaboration has emerged as a keyword and an important methodological and ethical concern in various disciplines, which has nurtured interdisciplinary approaches that often encompass innovative processes of knowledge production. In sonic practice, trends such as participatory art, the workshop turn, and ideas of Do-It-With-Others contributed to the emergence of creative processes that manifest within the sphere of inter-human relations through participation and collaboration. Such processes can operate beyond the institutional space, or classic studio and gallery settings, by engaging directly with the social realm; blurring the lines between art, performance and our lived social, political, economic, technological and environmental realities. How are interdisciplinary practices, methodologies and vocabularies shaping the way sound and music works are created and experienced? How does this search for knowledge change sonic practice? The second issue of Airea Journal explores these questions by presenting practice-based and theoretical contributions of collaborative interdisciplinary creative processes in sound. This special focus on sound is addressed from multiple perspectives in relation to compositional, audiovisual, social, political, environmental, participatory and performative standpoints. This is a move that pays attention to and interrogates the aesthetics, methodologies and politics of interdisciplinary sonic practices. The sound arts often involve more than one disciplines and in order to study and comprehend them, an interdisciplinary approach is demanded. Many sound artworks are more than just (about) sound or sounds. Consequently, no single discipline is able to fully encompass how sound as affective and vibrant matter can be both reflexive and constitutive of social, cultural, political, religious, ethical, and perhaps even biological or cognitive developments. Sound can be investigated from almost any angle, and the articles in the present issue include numerous disciplines and subjects.