PhD Oral Exam - Nik Forrest, Humanities

When studying for a doctoral degree (PhD), candidates submit a thesis that provides a critical review of the current state of knowledge of the thesis subject as well as the student’s own contributions to the subject. The distinguishing criterion of doctoral graduate research is a significant and original contribution to knowledge.

Once accepted, the candidate presents the thesis orally. This oral exam is open to the public.

Abstract

How do trans sound and listening practices unsettle ordinary flows of meaning and reproduction, making space for other forms and relations to emerge? This research-creation dissertation considers creative sound works by trans artists (noise, sound art, composition, performance, and live DJ sets) in conversation with trans feminisms, sound studies, communications studies and philosophy. These practices are positioned as expressions of the revolutionary desires of artists whose attentive, contagious and non-binary forms of listening and sound-making are explored as trans-ed methods for worldbuilding and becoming. “Trans/ transness” name capacious fields for experimentation with emergent subjectivities and forms of embodiment. “Transed” describes spaces, worlds, bodies and relations refigured and reoriented through trans sonic practices and from trans perspectives. Chapter One, “Signals: Listening and Sounding with VLF Transmissions,” discusses Very Low Frequency (VLF) sound practices as non-binary sensory attunements that exceed ordinary limits, for renewing social and ecological relations. Chapter Two, “Trans Synthesis,” explores sonic- and self-synthesis in creative work by Wendy Carlos and Terre Thaemlitz. Chapter 3, “Scenes,” focuses on how trans DJing, sound, and noise practices generate transed spaces for collective listening and becoming on our own terms, through close listening with work by Luwayne Glass (aka Dreamcrusher, Juliana Huxtable and Dion McKenzie (aka TYGAPAW). The concluding chapter, “Practicing Trans Sonics,” revisits my research-creation project “Scenes, Signals, Synthesis” which deployed trans sound techniques to generate transed scenes and acoustic shelters, to summon the literalization of real but ordinarily imperceptible worlds, relations, and emergent subjectivities, and to foster contagious and non-binary forms of collective listening.