Profiles

What I do:

I currently work in three main areas: creating, promoting and
researching new sound/music.

Creative Work:

I work predominantly with sound - both acoustic and electronic
mediums. Most of my recent and current output is for live performance or
installation. A lot of my work is concerned with the representation of
concepts. Recent subjects have included government education policy,
mental illness, people’s actions, and documentation of life events. I
use sonic texture to represent the concepts I work with and in designing
my pieces I regularly employ structural processes to generate the
effect I am looking for.

Research Work:

The role of (organised) sound within culture and society is fascinating
to me. All of my research work and academic writing is concerned with
aspects of this general area. Due to my interest in creating and
promoting new sound and music, my writing also focuses, unsurprisingly,
on the place of new sound and music within culture and considers various
cultural issues that impact contemporary music/sound works.

I have posted the essays (and abstracts) that I have written on my website. I
hope that they might be of interest. Should you wish to contact me
regarding this aspect of my work, please feel free to email me at: simon@simonpratt.co.uk.

Audience Development Work:

The current position of experimental and non-mainstream arts within
arts/society at large is a weak one. This type of work is largely
unpopular and can be linked to a general lack of awareness of these
types of art works. We feel comfortable with something through being
familiar with it and mainstream arts benefit in this sense from the
familiarity that we have with them. This is something that, by
definition, non-mainstream arts do not benefit from. In addition to
this, the gap between mainstream and non-mainstream arts has been
widening for some time, which is in no small part, a result of recent
and current media trends. This situation has resulted in an increasingly
marginalised position for non-mainstream arts.

I feel that non-mainstream arts need to reach a wider audience and reach
that audience more frequently. I hope that a heightened awareness of
this type of work would allow it to become more widely accepted and more
importantly, enjoyed within society. This, in my opinion, would redress
an imbalance in the spectrum.

It is for these reasons that I am actively involved in finding ways to
develop audiences for non-mainstream arts. I am currently carrying out a
survey of existing audience development research, and hope to formulate
useful strategies for augmenting such audiences in the future. In
addition to this, I am also involved in the launch of an organisation
called reHub which aims to develop an online community for people
who enjoy or who are involved in experimental and non-mainstream arts.
As these projects develop, I will include more about them on this
website.

Potted Biography:

I have been involved with music and sound now for roughly 25 years in
several guises. Within the last five years I have focussed on
experimenting with different ways to work with music and sound.
Academically, my first degree was in sociology and philosophy which is
where my interest in the relationship between sound and culture/society
comes from. I have developed both my creative and academic interests
over the last two years through completing a masters in composition at
Birmingham Conservatoire, UK.