The Sisyphus Project is a short audiovisual project that I have been working on over the last few weeks/months, in an effort to expand my creative ability and form a project of genuine interest.

My goal for the project was to create a final result that developed my skills in audio manipulation and sampling. The name is based on one of my favourite songs of all time by an artist called Quadeca, which also served as inspiration for the visuals that accompany the sound. I started off intending to create a soundscape that was disorientating and interesting throughout the piece, evolving over time and using unique sounds and effects to create an engaging atmosphere. The audio work was initially inspired by artists like Aural Holograms, but was later influenced by a dark ambient album called “Black Goat Of The Woods” by Black Mountain Transmitter as I researched the style of sound. I wanted to use sounds that were at least somewhat recognisable, but clearly distorted and changed in such a way it was impossible to pin down exactly what the sounds were, and I believe that I achieved that in the final result.

All the sounds that I used were either recorded or created by me - for example, all the bird sounds and recordings of spaces with vocals in, were recorded by me with various microphones and recorders, which was a deliberate attempt to create a library of sounds that I could reuse, and also so that the final project felt more authentic. Both the flute and drum sounds were created using synths, but effects were applied to make them harder to recognise as synthetic. I used a large variety of effects on the sounds to make them, such as huge open reverbs to create a sense of space, random stutters in sounds, big delays which also occasionally changed the pitch of the delayed sounds, and most importantly I used something called a spectral resonator to create strange “bubbling” sounds, which were essentially unrecognisable but added another layer of strangeness to the overall sound palette.

Overall, I’m extremely happy with the final product. I’ve pushed myself to be more creative with sound, and I now have a wider knowledge of creating and recording sounds that can be used in a project to confuse and engage the listener with a piece of audio. In the future I want to continue this idea, as I believe there is a lot of potential to expand and create more interesting soundscapes.

Transmission X

The Sisyphus Project

A Collection of Sounds

Created by Ethan Doyle