Fari Bradley
Fari Bradley
PhD Student
2018 – present
Fari Bradley is a sound artist, composer and arts-broadcaster who works with listening, language and location to question our sense of self and our place within society and the environment. Bradley’s practice spans performance, broadcast, installation and sculpture, involving experimental sound and music, and exercises in modes of listening and communication.
Originally from Iran, this London-based artist creates sculptural works using found objects, textiles and electronics. Her live performances engage with architecture, public space and history and often reflect her training in Indian Classical music. Bradley's research-based practice extends into collaboration, as part of noise-improv quartet Oscillatorial Binnage, and sound-art duo Bradley-Weaver. She is a recipient of an AHRC TECHNE award
PhD
New Ears for New Noise – How Might Sound Art Interrogate Signal Density in Smart Cities as Pollution?
In the projected Smart Environments (SmEs) of the near future, both household objects and architecture will use embedded sensors to track, record and relay our every movement and decision. We will live and work in dense meshes of wireless signals. In 2015 Ericsson predicted 5.6 billion cellphones worldwide by 2019 (Greengard, 2015), a small number compared to projections for SmE devices, of which parts already exist e.g. Alexa, fit-bits, smart fridges and boilers.
This practice-based PhD investigates how SmE signal 'levels' (strength, proximity, number) will increasingly become an irritant, and how signal density, although inaudible, is comparable in nature to concepts of noise pollution as it developed since the industrial revolution. Using established definitions and modes of measuring noise pollution, the research interrogates signal pollution caused by SmEs in order to define and address ‘signal density noise’ within the context of existing discourses, practices and strategies within sound arts.
Central to this approach is the concept of ‘expanded hearing’, which explores means hearing beyond the ear, and suggests a physical, multi-sensory perception of sound as vibration. Through expanded hearing, signal density can be discussed within the context of noise. Comparisons of noise pollution with SmE signal density noise can be explored through a sound arts practice, which serves as a research tool as it evolves.