Professor David Toop
Title
Professor of Audio Culture and Improvisation
College
London College of Communication
Email address
Tags
Researcher Research

Biography
David Toop is a composer/musician, author and curator based in London, working in many fields of sound art and music since the late 1960s. He has recorded Yanomami shamanism in Amazonas, appeared on Top of the Pops with the Flying Lizards and worked with artists ranging from John Zorn, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Bob Cobbing and Ivor Cutler to Akio Suzuki, Tania Chen, Camille Norment, Thurston Moore and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Exhibitions he has curated included Sonic Boom at the Hayward Gallery, Playing John Cage at Arnolfini, Bristol, and Blow Up at Flat Time House.He has published eight books, translated into ten languages, including Ocean of Sound, Sinister Resonance, Into the Maelstrom (shortlisted for the Penderyn Music Book Prize) an autobiography, Flutter Echo, and Inflamed Invisible, a collection of essays on art and sound. Since his first album, released on Brian Eno’s Obscure label in 1975, he has released twelve solo records, including Screen Ceremonies, Black Chamber, Sound Body and Entities Inertias Faint Beings. He is also the co-creator of Sculpture events with artist Rie Nakajima.
What I consider to be research is a questioning of research itself: in what sense can an identifiable practice of listening be formulated and how does that inform the act of reflecting on sound, whether through analytical writing, speaking, composing? This is also true of performance practice, particularly in improvised music: can the reflexivity of improvisation be understood within the framework of research?
My research focus is on sound, listening, writing sound, improvised music (practice, theory and history), sonic arts, strategies for composing for improvisers and a theory of ‘the instrument’ (the device or intangible ‘sculpture’ through which sound-making, listening and related events become manifest). This encompasses specific fields such as collaborative performance and listening to ‘silent’ media such as painting and literature but research as a site of discovery emerges from what is generated from the dialogue between all of these approaches, their varying intensities and forms of articulation.
Grants and awards
(Figures indicate amount awarded to UAL)
- Arts and Humanities Research Council, Sound body: the impact of digital technology on contemporary music/sonic arts, particularly improvised performance, £148,000.00, (2004-2007)
External Links
- David is a Member of Creative Research into Sound Arts Practice (CRiSAP), a UAL Research Centre
- David Toop's blog
- Read more about Sound Matters
- Offering Rites event series March/April 2014
- Sculpture 4 with Rie Nakajima and students of the Sound Art MA, LCC, The Hepworth Wakefield, 31 August 2014
- Guest speaker for Open Salon: Music/Listening/Art – Aether Talk – at ICC, Tokyo, October 2014
Research Outputs
Art/Design item
- Toop D. Entities Inertias Faint Beings (2016)
- Toop D. Star-shaped Biscuit (2012)
- Toop D. Sound Body - CD curation (project investigating the impact of digital technology on improvised music and sonic arts) (2007)
- Toop D. Not Necessarily "English Music" - curated double CD (2001)
Article
- Toop D. The Mediumship of Listening: Notes on Sound in the Silent Arts (2011)
- Toop D. Search and Reflect: the Changing Practice of Improvisation (2008)
Book
- Toop D. Flutter Echo: Living Within Sound (2017)
- Toop D. Into the Maelstrom: Music, Improvisation and the Dream of Freedom, Volume 1 (2016)
- Cobbing W, Cooper R, Krogh Groth S, Toop D, Wilson A. 'Boooook: The Life and Work of Bob Cobbing' (2015)
- Sandino L, Partington M, Toop D, McMillan M, Furnee B, Horton I, Handal A, Gates D, Candida Smith R, Bruchet L, Kirwin L, Ritchie AG, Clarke J, Flegg E, Cvetkovich A, Turney J, Buckel NR, Wilcox C, Suterwalla S, Tamboukou M, Oak A. Oral History in the Visual Arts (2013)
- Fasse C, Stickland P, Toop D. Rain-forest reveries (2011)
- Toop D. Sinister resonance: the mediumship of the listener (2010)
- Toop D. Haunted Weather Music, Silence and Memory (2004)
Book Section
- Toop D. Stephen Cripps: Exploding Practice Inevitable (2017)
- Toop D. FLAT TIME/sounding (2015)
- Toop D. Instruments of Non-Existence (Through Which Heaven and Earth Seek Reconciliation) (2014)
- Toop D. New and Rediscovered Musical Instruments Rediscovered (2013)
- Toop D. Trap Set (2013)
Conference, Symposium or Workshop item
- Toop D. Becoming Animal (2017)
- Toop D. Exhibition Histories: Sonic Boom (2016)
- Cobbing W, Cooper R. Make Perhaps This Out Sense of Can You (2015)
- Toop D. In Praise of Blandness: An exploration of hyper-nothingness (2015)
- Toop D. The body event: voice and recorded histories in the creation of a sound installation based on the ideas of the work of artist John Latham (2010)
Other
Performance
- Leister W, Toop D. Echoes and Callings (2018)
- Toop D. Instruments of Darkness (2017)
- Leister W, Toop D. Echoes and Afterlives (2016)
- Leister W, Toop D. Echoes (2016)
- Toop D, Norment C. Rapture (2015)
- Toop D. The Myriad Creatures will be Transformed of Their own Accord (2015)
- Voegelin S, Toop D, Cascella D. Performance Lecture (2011)
- Toop D, Michener E, Lewis B. Of Leonardo da Vinci: quills, a black giant, deluge (2010)
- Toop D. Flat time/sounding (2010)
Show/Exhibition
- Toop D, Bailey G. The Order In Expectedness and So On (2017)
- Toop D, Herrington T. Blow Up: Exploding Sound and Noise (London to Brighton, 1959-1969) (2010)
- Toop D. Sound Traces : The LMC Archive (2009)
- Toop D. Playing John Cage - curated a group exhibition related to composer John Cage. Organised and performed in the concert 'Playing John Cage Live' featuring other artists involved in the exhibition. (2005)
Teaching
Current research students
- Julie Groves, Physical Composition: Investigating the notion of the physical as a compositional tool by defining the term and its use through creative practice. (Lead supervisor)
- John Kannenberg, Listening to Museums: Curating the Ephemeral Sonic Object. (Lead supervisor)
- Kevin Logan, How to (Re)Do Things with Sounds: Mediating the Sonic-Deed. (Lead supervisor)
- Rob Mullender, Silent Light, Luminous Noise - Photophonics, Machines and the Senses. (Lead supervisor)
- Irene Anita Revell, Performing Womens Work: what constitutes a ‘feminist performance score’ and how does it extend our understandings of contemporary art practices? (Joint supervisor)
- Artur Matamoro Vidal, Exploring the notions of Silence and Sociality: New Contexts of Listening in Contemporary Music Improvisation. (Lead supervisor)
Past research students
- John Kannenberg, Listening to Museums: Curating the Ephemeral Sonic Object, London College of Communication. (Joint supervisor)