Titles
A-C
D-G
H-K
L-O
P-S
T-Z
A Decolonial Framework for Understanding the Heritage of Mig...A visual and ethnography analysis of Yangjiabu woodblock pri...Brookes (Revisited)Building New Animism into UNESCO Management PlansCalling on Ghosts: Lessons in Creativity from the Ruins of J...CAPTIVATECaptivate - Spatial Modelling Research GroupChoreographing Cultural Heritage: Dance, Festivals and State...Concrete citizens: sculptural dockers and neighbours on two ...Contextualized Digital Heritage Workshop York - Barley Hall:...Cultural Assets and Vernacular Materials: Exploring Changing...Curating Senses and Feelings in the world of William Hogarth...Darb Zubyadah: Different Approaches to Cultural Interchange ...Desert Truffles and the Living Heritage of Qatar: Bridging E...Digitalisation of Heritage in New Zealand: Challenges and Op...Digitizing Cultural Heritage: Methodologies for Preservation...Dissonant Pasts: Lacunae, Memory and Forgetting in Public Sp...Djerba in Crisis: Vernacular Heritage at Risk in the Face of...Drawing the Modern Past: Orthographic Documentation and Digi...Enhancing heritage practice through spatial sound art: A sit...Furnishing a Future: Designing a Contemporary Lace for Gover...Games, Gaelic, and the Highlands: Cha B’ e Ruith Ach Leum ...Gender Equality: 40 years on!Genesis and Genealogies: Lieux de Mémoire and Counter-Monum...Greenwich Park Revealed - How the Past and Present has Futur...Guernica Orientale: A Visual Vocabulary of Anticolonial Resi...Heritage Without a Nation: Pearl Palace and the Limits of UN...House for a Superstar: Sets Fit for The Queen [The Queens Ho...Hypercraft Revisited: Lace and Parametric ModelingIlluminating the Past: The Role of Projection Mapping in Her...Illustrated Heritage: Using Comics to Illuminate and Preserv...Integrated digital approach for the knowledge process of the...Intersectional Identity and Urban Planning: Empowering Women...Introducing VirtuAlive: A Conservation PhD Project-Indirect ...Jamdani Weaving, House forms and Choices: Stories of Jamdani...Layers of Adaptation: Investigating Vertical Mobility and Ar...Leveraging Lieux de Mémoire for Healing: A Grenada Case Stu...Literary Fiction as Mode of Conserving Culturel HeritageLiving in Fear and Trust: A Comparative Study of the Histori...Loundspeaker Orchestra, ‘Voyages’ concert performanceMicro Art EngineeringMobile Digital Storytelling and Heritage InterpretationMorrísland* William Morris and IcelandNavigating Cultural and Natural Landscapes: Heritagization a...Now Hear Then: Introducing Geolocated Audio to Explore the E...Peckham Phygital by Club Virtual: weaving new narratives of ...Preserving Architectural Models - the Heritage and Conservat...Proximity, Peripheries, and Preservation: Rethinking the Edg...Repositioning the Prime Meridian: an Artist's Ongoing Explor...Revisiting Sound Heritage at Sites: Soundscape, Embodiment a...Scar or School?: A Nigerian Perspective on Preservation of B...Social GatheringSoundmirror: Reimaginiing our Coastal Landscape Through Soun...Staging Memory: Heritage Tourism and the Politics of Remembr...Sustaining Heritage through Craft: A Long-Term Approach to C...The Algorithmically Authorised Heritage Discourse as a Tool ...The Barrow in the Landscape – Destroyed, Restored, Redefin...The Cultural Importance and Application of Kuwaiti Al-Sadu W...The Fog of Authorship: Modern Architectural Heritage and the...The Leather HubThe Missing Building: Participatory Design, Identity, and Be...The Politics of Verticality: Heritage and the Cornish Landsc...The Role of Interactive Spatial Storytelling in Reviving Cul...The triadic concept of heritage recordingThe Wild Nature of our Heritage: Does heritage benefit the m...Together stronger: Training citizens & professionals to prot...Tracing Social Cohesion Discursive Repertoires in UNESCO Doc...Triage in the Combat Zone: alternative artistic approaches t...Ulster’s Orange Halls: heritage worth surrendering?Use of Dissonant Built Heritage: The Case of Former Site of ...Violence and Heritage. Postpreservation in Chilean Sites of ...Waking Sleeping Giants: The Painted Hall, Greenwich and othe...Welcome and introductionWhy is it so hard to work with relations and not only object...YouTube and Dominant Heritage Representations
Schedule

IN-PERSON London Heritages. Section B

Critical Questions – Contemporary Practice
Enhancing heritage practice through spatial sound art: A site-responsive approach to St George’s Garrison Church
E. Margetson et al.
1:30 pm - 3:00 pm

Abstract

Through examining a case study located on the site of St George’s Garrison Church in Woolwich, London, this paper explores the creative and immersive potential of spatial sound art to enrich cultural heritage practices with multimodal experiences. We present an exploratory site-responsive approach to the sonic restitution of a ruined space, focusing on the interaction of sound with spatial aspects of the site; which culminated in a site-responsive performance on Wednesday 23 April 2025. Thus we examine how sound can work in and through space, conveying multimodal and multiplicitous experiences of a heritage site. From spatial acoustic measurements to ambient field recordings, the evolving soundscape reflects the layered history of the space. Accordingly, the site-responsive performance utilises a combination of spatial playback systems – the IKO Loudspeaker (20-face loudspeaker) and a 20 loudspeaker array – to reflect and represent the various aspects of a space, allowing for a multi-perspective auditory exploration. The restitution process is thus conceptualised not as a mere re-creation but as a dynamic, sound-based reinterpretation, a spatialised narrative of place. It enhances the sensory experience of the space but also provides a tool to evoke its past and speculate on its future, offering new ways of experiencing and understanding a place in flux. This research contributes to the field of spatial audio implemented in heritage contexts by offering insights into how multi-system approaches can enhance the representation and experience of architectural spaces through a deeply immersive, multifaceted, sonic lens.

Biography

Dr. Emma Margetson is an acousmatic composer and sound artist. Her research interests include sound diffusion and spatialisation practices; site-specific works, sound walks and installations; audience development and engagement; and community music practice. She has received a wide variety of awards and special mentions for her work. She is Senior Lecturer in Music and Sound at the University of Greenwich, a Research Fellow for the AHRC project “Audiovisual Space: Recontextualising Sound-Image Media” and co-director of the Loudspeaker Orchestra Concert Series.

Dr. Nadine Schütz is a Swiss sound architect and artist based in Paris. Her work bridges art and science, interpreting the auditory environment as a dynamic creative score for spatial transformation. Drawing on bio- and psychoacoustics, music, and landscape design, she crafts site-specific sound installations that enrich everyday experiences. Her acousmatic compositions, performances, and scenographic works have been showcased in cities worldwide. A lecturer in Landscape Acoustics, she established a pioneering studio for spatialised sonic landscape simulation at ETH Zurich. She is a guest composer at IRCAM-STMS in Paris and was recently appointed as a Visiting Professor at the University of Greenwich.

Professor Andrew Knight-Hill is a composer and researcher creating works that explore the interface between music and sound practice. His works have been heard internationally in film festivals and contemporary music concerts. He recently composed music and sound design for the immersive theatrical event “Over Lunan”, which was nominated for Outstanding Cultural Event as part of the 2022 Thistle Awards for Scottish Tourism. He is Professor of Music and Sound Arts at the University of Greenwich; leader of the SOUND/IMAGE Research Centre; co-director of the Loudspeaker Orchestra Concert Series; convenor of the annual SOUND/IMAGE festival and director of the Shared Hub for Immersive Future Technologies (SHIFT).

Dr. Brona Martin is an Electroacoustic composer and sound artist from Banagher, Co. Offaly, Ireland. Her compositions explore narrative in Electroacoustic music, acoustic ecology, oral history, sound and heritage and audio spatialisation techniques. Brona is a Lecturer in Music and Sound at the University of Greenwich where she teaches on the MA in Music and Sound Design course. She is also a researcher within the SOUND/IMAGE Research Centre with activities including Research Knowledge Exchange Lead and Project Lead on The Record Shop and Black Music Project.