Over a decade working within many modes of listening, Visible Cloaks have developed a practice that makes use of an ever-evolving set of creative strategies for working outside of the standard confines of composing, improvising or generating music. This workshop with the duo's conceptual architect Spencer Doran will feature a number of these strategies for composing "beyond the self", with a presentation of both their historical underpinnings and possibilities as vectors toward the future — approaching the creation and organization of sound as a process of emergence, a dissolution of the composer ego. These more conceptual discussions will be paired with methodology specific to Ableton Live (although prior experience is by no means a prerequisite).

By examining various shadow lineages from the 20th century music composition, the workshop will offer a creative toolkit for reclaiming of musical abstraction as a composing tool, away from the entrapments of overworn "ambient" background listening modes that have spread widely in the era of streaming as lifestyle modification tools and corporate means-to-an-end. By approaching ambient listening as possibility space, there will be an examination of it as a composer/audience interface for expressing the emotional states elicited by digital modernity, not simply a wellness industry "technology of the self." There will be an especially close reading of kankyo ongaku (Japanese environmental music) — not just a deep historical overview (based on long running research and direct collaboration with some of the genres key practitioners), but also an exploration into its contemporary resonance as a tool for working around the standard dynamics of artist-to-audience engagement, seen from both the composer and listener perspective.

Spencer Doran is a composer, sound designer and researcher working across the disparate-but-adjacent fields of abstract electronic music, game audio design and environmental music studies. As half of Visible Cloaks, the "humanely futuristic" duo with Ryan Carlile, Doran co-helmed albums such as Reassemblage (2017), Lex (2017) and, in collaboration with Yoshio Ojima and Satsuki Shibano, serenitatem (2019), developing a form of amorphous, omni-directional digital composition intended to be appreciated in both active and passive listening space. Their music has taken many forms: site-specific multi-channel pieces, live A/V performances, compositions for aleatoric chamber ensembles, albums, EPs, film scores, VGM composing, corporate sound design, collaborations with musicians like Miyako Koda, Motion Graphics, Seungmin Cha, Yoshio Ojima and Satsuki Shibano, and music for installations by artists like Brenna Murphy, Mike Tyka and Nile Koetting. As a researcher, he co-runs the Empire of Signs imprint with Maxwell August Croy (known for reigniting global interest in environmental music pioneers like Hiroshi Yoshimura) and compiled/annotated the compilation Kankyo Ongaku for Light in the Attic Records. 2023 saw the arrival of his audio direction and interactive score for the Playstation 5 title SEASON: A letter to the future. His work as both composer and researcher deals with concepts like human/digital hybridity, environmental sound design, east/west feedback loops of artistic influence and the glistening sheen of the hyperreal.



WHERE AND WHEN?

This is an online course, but it involves realtime sessions and contact time with your tutor - it's not a "download these videos and watch them at your leisure" type of thing - it's a real workshop with live lectures, individual tuition, assignments and feedback sessions. We've tried to make this remote session as close as possible to the experience of an onsite workshop at CAMP. The course starts on 19/11/2024 and ends on 10/12/2024. The schedule for sessions is as follows (all times are CET):

• Session 1: 19/11/2024, 19:00 - 22:00 CET
• Session 2: 26/11/2024, 19:00 - 22:00 CET
• Session 3: 03/12/2024, 19:00 - 22:00 CET
• Session 4: 10/12/2024, 19:00 - 22:00 CET

HOW TO BOOK

To book your place on the course, click the button in the green section above. You won't pay anything right now - we'll send you a booking confirmation email with everything you need to know next. Your place is reserved without payment for three days.

You'll find a payment link in the booking confirmation email - follow the link to make a payment (either in full, or the first payment of a 2 month payment plan). In the latter case, a monthly payment plan will be put in place, so your card will be charged 1/2 of the fee today, and 1/2 each month (on the same day) for an additional 1 months. All card payments are handled by Stripe, and are extremely secure. We don't store any card data ourselves - all of this is handled securely off-site by Stripe. If you have a discount or grant code, you will be able to add it when you follow the payment link in your confirmation email.

Once you've made a payment, you'll receive another email containing your receipt, links to resources, contact information and access to our group chat to discuss the workshop with other participants.