Xu, Han2024-04-052024-04-052023-08Xu_cornellgrad_0058F_13698http://dissertations.umi.com/cornellgrad:13698https://hdl.handle.net/1813/114807129 pagesThis portfolio is divided into two parts. The first part presents three compositions. First, Can One Hear the Shape of a Drum (2022-2023) is a performative installation for snare drum, bass drum, and electronic feedback. The work was first performed at Cornell University's Milstein Hall on September 15th, 2022, by percussionist Greg Stuart, supported by the Cornell Department of Music, the Cornell Contemporary Chamber Players, and the Cornell Council for the Arts. Sound is a concrete embodiment of tactile experience. Following this belief, I guide this work to the essence of vibration. Buddhist ideas of vibrational equality, and a sonic ontology influence this approach. I use feedback to resonate the bodies of the drums to demonstrate this phenomenological fact, using gestures of the human body to interfere with the vibration. Second, Blind Opera (2020-2021) is a composition for two or more performers wearing eyeless, proximity-sensing masks. The piece explores spatial and acoustic performance practices in indoor spaces, reflecting my interest in coding, wearable technologies/instruments, trial-and- error instrument hacking, hands-on aesthetics, and feedback. The masks enable practitioners to aurally perceive space, objects, and social interaction by detecting the position of objects and generating sounds whose amplitudes and frequencies change in response. Third, Etude No.1 Reassembling the Social (2019-2021) is a composition for ensemble, everyday objects, and 8-channel electronics, premiered at Cornell University's Barnes Hall on October 20th, 2021, by the Israeli Chamber Project as part of the Steven Stucky Memorial Residency. This work intertwines everyday objects, prepared acoustic instruments, and electroacoustic sounds, alluding to the ubiquitous social network. The second part presents two essays exploring my interests in compositional techniques and sound studies. As a composer and improviser of acoustic music, electroacoustic music, and sound installations, I am interested in creating a sense of theater through sound. This interest is expressed here, first, through a case study of Mauricio Kagel's work, Atem, investigating when theater emerges from a sonic idea, and second in an essay focused on three modes of listening in Chinese culture, all present in ancient writings on music: pragmatic listening, ontological listening, and negative ontological listening. This last type of listening transcends ontology, tending toward metaphor, and connecting the material world to one beyond it. I trace these three listening modes in relation to new and emerging auditory practices in modern China, attempting to better incorporate Chinese auditory culture into the field of contemporary sound studies.enAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 InternationalArchaeo-acoustic StudyChinese Auditory CultureInstrumental TheaterSound Studiesdissertation or thesishttps://doi.org/10.7298/p4cc-ng96