Abstract This article examines the most renowned electroacoustic music festival in Chile so far, from its first edition in 2001 to 2012, when its continuity was interrupted. It focuses on two aspects that appeared relevant and took place consistently during the period under study: (1) the generation of networks, circulations and aesthetic crossovers that were favoured by the festival; and (2) the perspective of the electroacoustic concert as a space for research and experimentation in devices and formats deemed appropriate for a particular experience of music. To this end, primary and archival sources of the article’s author as well as other direct participants in the festival’s organisation were reviewed. Based on this, the relevance of these types of activities in the dissemination of these art forms is determined, as well as the need for proper management to grow and consolidate these spaces.

Abstract This article explores an initiative aimed at fostering a culture of electronic music and sound arts in Peru, focusing on the Open Science project, Circuito Abierto (2022–2024). It explores how Circuito Abierto , an annual artistic residency rooted in Open Science culture and organised by the Laboratorio de Música Electroacústica y Arte Sonoro at the Universidad Nacional de Música (UNM, formerly the Conservatorio Nacional de Música ), challenged traditional and conservative educational structures within Peru’s academic landscape. The project promoted an open, collaborative approach to music creation, aimed at bridging the gap between academic and popular music scenes in the education of electronic music. Circuito Abierto may serve as a case study for addressing broader historical challenges in Peruvian music education, particularly with regard to music technology and experimental electronic sound art practices.

Abstract Drawing on Umberto Eco’s epistemological metaphor of the open work, this paper explores the intersection of two open forms of notation, inherent scores and text scores, with generative AI. Building on the notion of inherent scores, in which the interface merges with the notation, we introduce embodied sketching, a notational approach that streamlines composition and performance with real-time neural audio synthesis (NAS). We then examine text scores in text-to-audio NAS, presenting Mouja+, a work combining real-time NAS with embodied sketches and AI-generated audio from Fluxus scores. Based on the experience of composing and performing Mouja+, we show how AI’s statistical processing of language introduces interpretative gaps between the human understanding of the scores and the model’s output and propose prompting strategies to streamline the use of text scores with text-to-audio generative AI. We continue by discussing how NAS adds to the open work through algorithmic processes that coalesce into an elusive and deferring sense of presence. Through Derrida’s notion of hauntology, we thus extend the open work into what we term the ‘haunted work’, an epistemological metaphor encompassing a growing corpus of works engaging with the tension between presence and absence as a source of openness.

Abstract This text explores how electronic musical instruments and electronic music ensembles can relate to composition and music notation by discussing the instruments in terms of existing practice in traditional instrumentation and in relation to symbolic electroacoustic music analysis. Starting from orchestration theory, the text considers how electronic musical instruments behave and are used, both with support from the author’s own practice and from a case study with students within the framework of a live-electronic ensemble course. The case study reflected the participants’ practice as creative composers/musicians, and how their exploratory and experimental approaches to their instruments proved important, creating challenges for notation. Traditionally, music notation relies on continuous changes of simple parameters, while performances with complex electronic instruments may have just as important information to document regarding their initial connectivity and parameter settings.

Abstract All around Santiago, Chile, there are water towers known to citizens as Copas de Agua . These towers are recognised as modern industrial heritage and integral landmarks within the city’s urban landscape, contributing significantly to its cultural identity. This article presents strategies for exploring aural architecture by creating a new space defined by sound in motion within an existing architectural structure with unique morphological and acoustic characteristics through the medium of sound installation art. The project Polyphono , a multichannel sound installation located within the Copa de Agua of Quinta Bella, Chile, establishes a dialogue between three different spaces: the invisible space of the sound installation, the existing space of the water tower and the symbolic space of experience. In this process, an interior space of sound emerges within the physical space of acoustic reactions, which is experienced by the audience as aural architecture. This dynamic situation involves animating the monumentality of the water tower, transforming it through the performative action of the sound installation, thereby intensifying the historical significance of the site in physical, sensory, political and social terms. The outcomes are framed as a transitional space, from site-specific sound to aural architecture, creating an affective space for aesthetic experience.

Abstract This article explores an under-discussed and unclaimed conceptualisation of futurity that can be located within historical sound practices and sonic thoughts of the Indian subcontinent. In the 1950s and 1960s, this alternative sonic worldview influenced Western music and its sound pallet without credit. The intervention of this futurism in the Western model of music, sounding and listening was revolutionary, proliferating an alternate aesthesis of time, space and subjectivities in sound practices – with an emergent environmentality, manifesting arguably in the birth of ambient music and sounding arts and remodelling of sensing the world from a relational perspective. Yet, this sonic worldview, knowledge system and a radical sense of non-linear futurity were not recognised then. But the importance of the futurity can be appreciated today on the verge of multiple planetary crises. It is in this time and day that a futurist vision may provide a new sense of surviving for a posterity and generate a possibility of emancipation from the fear and loathing for a dystopian tomorrow, which is construed from a Western perspective entrenched in its rationality. How can we hear possible futures from perspectives of South Asia that have been marginalised in sonic epistemologies by an absence of voices, which could offer new grounds?

Abstract This editorial examines the systemic exclusion of Black and South Asian artists from the field of experimental sound, highlighting the historical and institutional biases that have marginalised their contributions. While experimental sound is often framed as a universal, ethnically neutral practice, this narrative obscures the racial and cultural biases shaping the discipline. The marginalisation of these artists is not simply about visibility; it reflects deeper socio-cultural and institutional mechanisms that have historically sidelined their radical sonic innovations. This issue challenges the Eurocentric frameworks that dominate the discourse, drawing attention to the pioneering contributions of Black and South Asian musicians whose work expands the possibilities of experimental sound. By centring these voices, we aim to decolonise the field and offer a more inclusive understanding of experimental sound that recognises its global, diverse influences. Through contributions from artists and scholars, this issue explores how race, identity, and culture intersect within sonic experimentation, offering critical perspectives that question established narratives. Ultimately, this collection aims to reshape the future of experimental sound by amplifying underrepresented voices, advocating for a more equitable and representative sonic landscape that acknowledges the depth of contributions from historically marginalised communities.

The article takes Boethius’s theory of musical harmony as a starting point, in particular studying the collective dimension embedded in this concept. The dynamics of contact and interdetermination, between humans and other-than-human, are explored and understood as factors co-involved in the possibility of common living. The role of the notions of ecology and economy in rereading the concept of harmony provided by Boethius’s theory is also reviewed. The text then explores a site-specific work that experiments with these issues through the creation of an acousmatic patch that is superimposed onto a broken ecology, showing how this serves as an agent for a reharmonisation of a drought-ravaged river. The article concludes by addressing the implications that a territorially situated musical approach might represent for recovery of the broken link between humans and the other-than-human.