Audio-Visualism

Steve Gibson is an audio-visual performer and Associate Professor at Northumbria University. He has presented at many world-leading venues including ISEA2025 Seoul, 404 Festival Mexico City, and Cabaret Voltaire.Yan Breuleux is a Full Professor at NAD-UQAC. His research-creation practice focuses on visual music for fulldome environments, examining the interplay between narrativity, sensoriality, and immersion in audio-visual practices.Joseph Hyde’s work incorporates a wide variety of influences in live electronics, audio-visuals, and immersion. He is Emeritus Professor at Bath Spa University and is currently working for HVN Labs, developing next-generation drone light shows. josephhyde.co.ukDonna Leishman is a media artist, researcher, and Associate Professor of Visual Communication and Digital Cultures at Northumbria University. Her practice explores the ethics and politics of our ongoing participation with digital spaces and art forms and the social implications of this relationship.

“Audio-Visualism offers a rigorous and expansive reframing of the relationship between sound and image in contemporary artistic practice. Drawing on long historical trajectories of audio-visual practice, critical reflection, and first-hand practitioner insight, the book moves beyond cinematic models to address live, immersive, and socially engaged work. It captures the vitality and diversity of the field today, standing as an essential scholarly contribution and an engaging resource – an essential guide to where audio-visual practice has come from, and where it may be heading.”Christl Baur, Head Program Director of the Ars Electronica Festival“Audio-Visualism succeeds as a record of a field becoming conscious of itself. By placing experiential knowledge, Indigenous worldviews, and practice-led inquiry alongside critical analysis, the book captures audio-visual work at a point of heightened articulation. There is an unmistakable sense that these conversations are unfolding at the threshold of longer historical arcs, as tools, practices, and communities converge and are named from within. As the chapters accumulate, the reader senses a period of unusual creative density – one future generations will study not as background, but as origin.”Kelly Snook, PhD, Music Producer, Sonification Researcher, Co-Founder and Co-Director of Mimu Gloves and the Harmonics Institute“This book is a clear and authoritative analysis of audio-visual practice as a mature artistic discipline. Enriched by the knowledge of artists working in the field, it moves beyond screen-based paradigms to address the evolution of the genre. Both rigorous and accessible, Audio-Visualism establishes itself as the ultimate reference, presenting sound and image as a unified, performative language.”Alain Thibault, Artistic Director of the Elektra Festival & Biennial, and AV Artist

• List of contributorsAcknowledgementsINTRODUCTIONChapter 1 - Reframing Relationships Between Sound & ImageSteve Gibson and Yan BreuleuxPart I - ANALOGUE TO DIGITAL AND THE REVERSE - JOSEPH HYDE EDITORChapter 2 - Technological Progress and Audio-Visual Practice - A critical and non-linear accountJoseph HydeChapter 3 - A-V The Art of Audio-Visual RelationshipMatt Black and Nilly BrookChapter 4 - Hacking Technology as Art PracticeRichard LandChapter 5 - Override: An Experiment in Interrupting the Congruity of Audio-Visual Relationships Across Analogue and Digital DomainsIris GarrelfsChapter 6 - Live Chipmusic VisualsLeonard J. PaulPart II – THE SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL USES AND IMPLICATIONS OF AUDIO-VISUALS – DONNA LEISHMAN EDITORChapter 7 - Sleight of Hand: Co-Commodification of Counterculture In Audio-VisualsDonna LeishmanChapter 8 - Activism, Environmental and Non-Conventional Storytelling Within Audio-Visual Practice Mike Faulkner (D-Fuse)Chapter 9 - “For what has not yet been heard”: Sonic Resistance in Women’s Experimental Film CultureHolly RogersChapter 10 - Otekhnóshera: Indigenous Visualizms and the Spectrality of the Technological VortexTékeniyáhsen Ohkwá:ri (Jackson 2bears)Chapter 11 - Global Narratives: Navigating Power and PresenceChristopher Thomas Allen (The Light Surgeons)Part III - MOVING BEYOND THE RECTANGLE IN THE REALITY–VIRTUALITY CONTINUUM – YAN BREULEUX EDITORChapter 12 - The Architecture as Instrument: Fulldome Visual Music Experiments at the Society for Arts & Technology (SAT)Yan BreuleuxChapter 13 - Multiscreen Video - The Affordances of Multiple Screens and the Spaces In BetweenRik LanderChapter 14 - Error is creation: 20 years of Art, Technology and Education. The Experiences of the 404 FestivalGina ValentiChapter 15 - Beyond the Screen and In Between Art Forms: Ambisonics, 360-video and Audio-Visual Practice in Hong KongRyo IkeshiroPart IV - MODES OF INTERACTION AND INTEGRATION – STEVE GIBSON EDITORChapter 16 - Reframing Audio-visual Art through Affect and BecomingPaul GoodfellowChapter 17 - Embodied Interaction and Audio-Visuals in the Performing ArtsNuno N. Correia and Atau TanakaChapter 18 - Sound-Driven Practices With Digital 3D EnvironmentsAdriana Sá and Rui Filipe AntunesChapter 19 - Live Beyond Expanded: Pervasive Interaction and A/VMatthew Tobias HarrisChapter 20 - Total Media Audio-Visualism: Liveness, Embodiment, Serendipity, AgencySteve GibsonIndex