Composing Fragmented Relations with Materials, Locations and Archives

In this chapter we build on a relational perspective to sound art, drawing on theories of mobilities research and agential realism to explore the nature and texture of relations that are not only human but material, temporal, spatial and mobile. Informed by our work about a World War One memorial Homing (2016) we describe sound production as the composition of fragmented relations. These various aspects of fragmentation do not, however, make the work fall apart. Instead, within the building of a locative sound work, fragmentation becomes central to composition. Fragments are tied together, not into a smooth flow, but into a textured experience, as sound is used as a kind of connective tissue bringing disparate elements into relationships. We therefore suggest that by focusing on a Baradian reading of relationality in sound art, fragmented relations can be seen as both leading to composition and simultaneously being produced by its situated nature