Margetson, Emma ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1054-1973 (2025) Travelling through the Fog (for 12-channel + IKO loudspeaker). [Composition]

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Abstract

Travelling through the Fog is a site-responsive spatial sound work developed for the historic vessel Cutty Sark. The composition explores the relationship between object and environment through a multi-channel diffusion system centred around the IKO loudspeaker.

The work treats the ship itself as both container and instrument. The IKO functions as the sonic body of the vessel: sound materials are derived directly from the ship’s physical structure through contact recordings of timbers, hull, rigging, resonances, impacts, and internal vibrations. These materials are activated and projected outward through the spherical loudspeaker, positioning the IKO as an embodied extension of the vessel rather than a representational device.

Surrounding the ship, a twelve-channel loudspeaker array functions as the environmental field - the sea, atmosphere, and open spatial context against which the vessel exists and is defined. This creates a spatial dialogue between concentrated sonic material at the centre and a distributed surround field encircling it.

Rather than illustrating the ship, the work constructs a spatial relationship between interior material identity and exterior environment. Through its radiation patterns and physical positioning, the loudspeaker mirrors the condition of the vessel itself: a bounded object situated within open water. In Travelling through the Fog, the physical structure of the ship becomes embedded within the compositional process, where the IKO does not simply project sound but articulates the material identity of the site.

Item Type:	Composition
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Spatial sound; embodied listening; IKO loudspeaker; Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA); site-responsive composition; distributed loudspeaker systems; Sonic Spheres; architectural acoustics
Subjects:	M Music and Books on Music > M Music
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences > Centre for Sound and Image Faculty of Law, Arts and Social Sciences
Last Modified:	20 May 2026 11:01
URI:	https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/53506

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