Translucence: Listening to Loudspeakers
with Sara Constant
Wednesday, March 19th, 2025
5:30 – 6:30pm
In Person at the Sound Studies Institute
3-47 Old Arts and Convocation Hall
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Concert:
Saturday March 22, 2025
8:00pm
Raylene Campbell Album Release
w/ Sara Constant + Mustafa Rafiq, Kelly Ruth, and Static Control
Event Listing
From the earliest PA systems of the 1910s to present-day high-fidelity audio, one of the most common values in electronic sound is that of transparency: the idea that a good-quality loudspeaker is one that makes itself sonically invisible, delivering a sound as close to the ‘real thing’ as possible.
Loudspeaker technology, though, is imperfect: from the tinny speakers in smartphones to the ways that professional AV systems favour some frequencies over others, the unique resonant properties of microphones and loudspeakers always have an influence on the sounds they transmit, in ways that shape our listening.
Drawing on her own artistic practice in electronic music and sound installation, Sara Constant will explore the creative potential of microphones and loudspeakers as physical, resonant objects. Rather than trying to conceal the quirks of these technologies, Sara introduces an approach that instead treats microphones and loudspeakers as musical instruments, with their own unique musical properties. In doing so, this talk explores how the technologies we use to record and play back sound can be a vital starting point for creative inquiry—one that provides insight into the physical nature of sound, and the complicated ways that we listen.
An artist and musician based in Tkaronto/Toronto, Sara Constant works in various forms of contemporary/experimental music and sound—using composition, improvisations with instruments and electronics, and sound installation to explore ideas around listening, resonance, and place. Trained as a flute player and active as a soloist, improviser, sound artist, and ensemble musician, Sara holds degrees from the University of Toronto, University of Amsterdam, and Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, and has presented sound installations and musical projects across Canada, Europe, and the United States.
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