Our fourth symposium will focus on all things network-y, from the fungal and rhizomic to networked music. As ever, the symposium will bring together artists and researchers from a wide field of interest to explore the synergies between seemingly disparate research areas. We will also launch SPARC Lab, our new facilities for practice-based research in immersive sound and movement.

Ecological thinking, beyond the conventional understanding of environment, asks us to consider new ways of imagining how we conceive of and consider the world. The SPARC Symposium 2019 considers this shift in thinking through the lens of sound practice from a variety of perspectives from artists and theorists who consider how to respond to this moment of crisis.  

While the social aspects of music-making are well-documented, the sociality of sound is less often discussed in detail. The SPARC Symposium 2018 brought practitioners and researchers from a wide variety of musical and non-musical backgrounds for two days of spoken presentations, discussion, installation, film screenings and performances.

The discourse around touch and the tactile has been growing in recent years. Within music, this conversation is mainly dominated by the integration of haptics with sound technology and the way in which music ‘touches’ us emotionally. The SPARC Symposium 2017 explored the deeply embodied experience that is hearing and listening and add to this ever growing field of practice and research.