Even those who think that death is a continuation, and not an ending, can benefit from contemplating the implications of annihilation (Luper 2009: 3)

The significance of death is the destruction of something that exists, the replacement of life, in the interior of the self, of an animated object by a static memory of that object, a framed event of finitude represented in the mind of the bereaved. Therefore manifesting, through sonic means, the continuum of time and procession of the image on the decay of the frame in memory itself, reveals the dialectic between real and hyper real, image and text, metaphor and literal. It isn’t the death of the object, but its interplay between what it is and what it represents. By annihilating the object, grounded in ethnographic description, we can recreate it in the context of the synthetic deathscape and replicate findings based on a processual continuum of stages drawing from theoretical frameworks [see Figure.01]. By drawing the metaphorical from the literal in this way, in a synthetic way, the mediation of sound reveals microprocesses in its transformation, as ‘memory is never a precise duplicate of the original… it is a continuing act of creation’ (Cartwright 2012: 45).

Source material for the deathscape project was recorded for their strength in representing my sonic memories from experiences of death. In this way the initial stage of recording follows Maddrell and Sidaway’s phenomena of death outlined in the introduction [expanded in Appendix I] and the singular concept of personal memories of death that informs the core structure of the deathscape, following Belshaw’s observation, ‘what about death? As with art, there is something wide-ranging here, with the one notion pulling together multiple phenomena’ (Belshaw 2009: 25). Through this central action, I aim to manifest a theoretical simulacrum of death grounded in real-world sonic artefacts, lending an additional weight to the hyperreal snapshot of death tropes.

This represents the initial mediation of source material. At this stage the piece resembles a soundscape, as it is captured and then exploited in death’s image. The concept of a ‘frame’ of finitude originated during field recording in Cairo [see Cairo recording post]. Theory that informs sound structure must be able to frame ethereal processes whilst maintaining a malleable function that affords the interfacing properties present during assimilation of acoustic referents in the soundscape. It is the intersection of models that manifests a false reality, a simulacra of death, in the translation from soundscape to deathscape. The artefacts at this stage reflect their original source characteristics, through decay over this two-minute introduction, partial removal through Iris and Spear see the acoustic referent replicate itself as a reflection of its reality. The initial stages of the interlocking four x four stages are applicable to the ‘annihilation’ stage of the deathscape, essentially creating a snapshot of a reality evoked by studio technology for future manipulation by later mediating processes applied to source material. Sounds that include their source characteristics do not change the perception of these sounds as artefacts. Fales explains, ‘the presence of source characteristics in a synthesized sound creates an auditory metaphor that contextualizes the sound in the acoustic world’ (Fales 2005: 168).

Latent memories impregnate the source spaces, from room tone and the broken grandfather clock, to the crashing of the waves on the coast where ashes are scattered. It is the framework constructed from theory of death that impacts practice, moulding the soundscape in an image of death. This requires a framework that is developed through theory and revealed in sound. Through mediation, source characteristics emerge temporarily as they decay and are transcribed on the surface of the soundscape. For example, the grain manipulation of [03_Death_Rattle_Granular] means the very structure of its acoustics, its DNA, is altered. These artefacts are then programmed across time and space in the composition, rendering fragments that are harmonious with the replicator-based account, ‘which considers a thing alive only if it is based on structures that, under suitable conditions, are capable of replication, mutation, augmentation, and bequest’ (Luper 2009: 22). The artefacts left after this stage of annihilation will be programmed and processed in the augmentation portion.

To transition to this next stage, the primary texture arising from destruction of [04_Clock_Pendulum] will be run through an impulse response of the chimney in the room to artificially extend the life of the component, signaling the dispersion of materials and the metamorphism as it proceeds to augmentation. The frame of finitude developed here represents a memory, a reflection of the animated artefact that is beholden in place of the original so its life may be suspended then revived. As death is extrinsic to life, it can be said it ‘annihilates the meaning of the free projection of the possibilities of the for-itself, which, once it is dead, is definitively reduced to an in-itself, and the meaning of its past actions is henceforth conferred by the surviving for-itself’ (Schumacher 2011: 91-92).