A spotlight on audio papers: re-thinking traditional methods of assessment for BA (Hons) Sound Arts

The BA (Hons) Sound Arts course at London College of Communication (LCC) has always been at the cutting-edge of sonic study, preparing students for a diverse range of careers by expanding the breadth of their practice. In their second year, students all undertake an ‘audio paper’; and in their final year they can optionally choose an ‘audio paper’ instead of a traditional written dissertation. We spoke to members of the course teaching team, David Mollin and Salomé Voegelin, about audio papers and the benefits to students.

Tell us a bit about the introduction of audio papers; how did they come about?

The audio paper was introduced as an option alongside the more conventional dissertation format at the revalidation of the BA Sound Arts in 2022/23, by the teaching team under the stewardship of the then course leader J. Milo Taylor, who worked to get the audio paper approved as a valid form of assessment. This inclusion of the format in the curriculum reflects a growing sense of the value and importance of material and practice-based knowledge for (sound) arts scholarship.

What is the benefit over more ‘traditional’/’academic’ essay writing?

The audio paper presents the potential to perform a different understanding of academic research that is spatial and relational. We believe that the benefit of the audio paper, over ‘traditional’ academic scholarship and essay writing, is this relational and spatial dimension. Sound generates an academic notion that is not bound to visible words on a page as reference and meaning. Instead, the words are vocalised and spatial, and therefore intrinsically linked to the context of their sound.

This is not to say that the more conventional essay and dissertation format is redundant. By contrast, we believe that there can be a useful cross-contamination, and the approaches practised and supported by the audio paper can help us rethink more traditional scholarly formats. That is one of the reasons we hold the seminars for audio paper and dissertation students together, so they may quite literally influence each other’s thinking and practice: how a dissertation too can be rethought through sound, reading it aloud, performing it, opening it to new relationships.

What are some of the topics covered by students so far?

You can see a good variety of topics on the Glissando London Voices page. We’ve had submissions about punk and Islamic identity, graphic scores, queer listening, universities in a neo-liberal age, and much more.

How does this develop LCC students’ artistic practice?

It is important that the audio paper is understood as distinct from (sound) arts practice. Instead, the audio paper is the practice of sound as knowledge material as it stands in its relation to academia and to research. It represents a practice of research and theory, not a practice of art.

The decision taken in recording, composing and editing do not follow the aesthetics of sound art, but the requirements of knowledge. At the same time, we believe the audio paper opens up a broader understanding of the format and possibility of knowledge as it is conventionally pursued through the dissertation, including also tacit and situated knowledge possibilities.

Because, much like in the students’ own practice, it is the many different ways their ideas will have developed within the students’ lives before they even begin study, that becomes audible and gains resonance through the audio paper.

This invites the listener to understand the topic in a different way to reading a dissertation. And hopefully this listening experience will feed back into more conventional writing linked as it is to broader activities of research. And of course, it also has the capacity to influence the student’s (sound) arts practice, informing them and contextualising their studio work.

What is the future for the London Voices issue? What kinds of submissions are you looking for?

We are already working with our collaborators at Glissando to prepare the next issue and have funding in place. For this purpose, we will again choose roughly five audio papers from the current submission by final year BA Sound Arts students. This group of audio papers will be chosen on the basis of the relevance of their topics to current debates, without however censoring content or topics, but considering which ones open the most exciting connections. We also consider the complexity of the work and how it has managed to use sound as a material knowledge as opposed to a quasi-visual language. Another guiding thought is which ones would benefit from a more public exposure, and from whose exposure the public would most profit.

-       Find out more about BA (Hons) Sound Arts at LCC.

-       Explore the Glissando London Voices page.