Videos by Darrin Verhagen
Whilst the effects of the soundtrack may often be elicited subliminally, the strength of audio to... more Whilst the effects of the soundtrack may often be elicited subliminally, the strength of audio to add value to image and narrative is well accepted, if not fully understood. Part I: “Sound, Ears & Emotion” begins by outlining the functional mechanics of score and sound design. It draws on inherent elements of evolutionary biology and principles of systematic musicology to better understand how sound can make the audience feel. Part II: “Sound, Eyes & Attention” draws on results from an ETMI Research Group study. It examines data collected from participants watching Monsters Inc. under two conditions – sound on and sound off. By so doing, it moves beyond a focus on emotion and considers how audio shifts the traditional balance between volitional and reactive attention. Papers by Darrin Verhagen
There exists a long tradition of incorporating acoustic space as a creative parameter in musical ... more There exists a long tradition of incorporating acoustic space as a creative parameter in musical composition and performance. This creative potential has been extended by way of modern sensing and computing technology which allows the position of the listener to act as an input to interactive musical works in immersive, digital environments. Furthermore, the sophistication of sensing technology has reached a point where barriers to implementing these digital interactive musical systems in the physical world are dissolving. In this research we have set out to understand what new modes of artistic performance might be enabled by these interactive spatial musical systems, and what the analysis of these systems can tell us about the compositional principles of arranging musical elements in space as well as time. We have applied a practice-based approach, leveraging processes of software development, composition, and performance to create a complete system for composing and performing what we refer to as spatial metacompositions. The system is tested at scale in the realisation of a musical work based upon the path of a sailplane in flight. Analysis of the work and the supporting system leads us to suggest opportunities exist for extending existing intermodal composition theory through the analysis of audiovisual renderings of performed spatial works. We also point to unique challenges posed by spatial arrangement, such as effective strategies for structuring musical notes in three dimensions as to produce strong harmonic movement. Beyond enabling new modes of artistic expression, the understanding garnered from these musical structures may help inform a more generalisable approach to non-linear composition, leveraging virtual representations of musical space that respond to arbitrary input data.
Curators Statement: The Model Citizen The model citizen exhibition is orientated around two inter... more Curators Statement: The Model Citizen The model citizen exhibition is orientated around two intersecting points: how modelling enables artists to reshape and remake the world; and how citizenship is itself crafted out of forms of selfhood and belonging that are represented to be ideal or exemplary. Of course, the question of whom gets to model, and who is included in the pantheon of noble citizens, is related to access and power, to gender and race. If I am not a citizen, then what am I? If I am an artist without form, then do I melt into air? In modelling citizenship, each of the artists involved in this exhibition model their art and their understanding of citizenship through a conscious play with scale and size, stillness and movement, sound and silence, and by engaging in a dialogue with the engines of capital and the abstract power that governs our lives. We are modelling citizenship. The artists involved in this exhibition share similar beliefs: that thinking through making establishes and nourishes the way public life is experienced and understood; that as creative and critical stakeholders, artists have a central role to play in shaping public life; and that through the very act of modelling, creative processes become social practices. The two aspects of the exhibition title are equally important: the artists desire that through modelling, their art becomes political life; and that citizenship itself needs (re)modelling as it suffers in an age of withering truth. Are you a model citizen? More boldly, the exhibition suggests that the time has come to decide what kind of citizens we want to be: do we work alone and for the individual or do we come together as communities of renewal? This exhibition isn’t intended, then, to just creatively comment on the politics and poetics of the model citizen, but to offer up ways of transforming the processes of citizenship itself. Given the collapse in truth, and the complexities of living in a war-torn age, under the sun of environmental collapse, and the yoke of audit culture, the exhibition may also be a mode of survival, urgently deploying the power of the impossible to stand against the once unthinkable acts taking place in the world. The models on show are not simply theoretical or performative: they are activist in formation. The hands of Sisyphus, the bodies of dance, the celebrated words of Auden, the post-truth of Trump, surveying data algorithms, the wild Anthropocene, the AI virus, and a gaggle of teetering disembodied newsreaders together haunt the exhibition, as does the spirit of the carnival, and the agency of the artist activist who has decided to model citizenship in new and transformatory ways. Let me be a citizen who lives without fear. Let me be an artist who knows the truth. Sean Redmond and Darrin Verhage
Australasian Drama Studies, Oct 1, 2015
M+M was produced for the 2013 Melbourne International Festival of the Arts as a co-production bet... more M+M was produced for the 2013 Melbourne International Festival of the Arts as a co-production between the Festival, Theatre Works and Daniel Schlusser Ensemble.1 Billed as a 'free adaptation' of Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita, it would be more accurately described as an autonomous theatre creation that was built around motifs, characters and the action of the novel, infused with the distinctive humour and anarchy of Bulgakov but also creating its own narrative possibilities. Set in the confines of a prison or asylum, fracturing the source materials across performers, binding the character of Margarita with the punk-protesters Pussy Riot and the Christ-story, the production could be read as examining political tyranny in Russia both past and present, or more broadly as an examination of the role of resistance, unconditional love, sacrifice, and individual acts of artistic creation as a ritualistic defence of the polis.
Ergonomics, Jul 17, 2018
We investigated the effects of low frequency whole body vibration on heart rate variability (HRV)... more We investigated the effects of low frequency whole body vibration on heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of autonomic nervous system activation that differentiates between stress and drowsiness. Fifteen participants underwent two simulated driving tasks for 60 minutes each: one involved whole-body 4-7 Hz vibration delivered through the car seat, and one involved no vibration. The Karolinska Sleepiness Scale, a subjective measure of drowsiness, demonstrated a significant increase in drowsiness during the task. Within 15-30 minutes of exposure to vibration, autonomic (sympathetic) activity increased (p < 0.01) in response to the stress of maintaining alertness and performance when drowsy, and peaked at 60 minutes (p < 0.001). Changes in three other HRV domains (higher LF/HF ratios, lower RMSSD (ms), and pNN50 (%) values) were consistent with increased sympathetic activation. These findings have implications for the future development of equivalent drowsiness contours leading to improvements in road safety.
The purpose of this systematized review is to review evidence within current peer reviewed litera... more The purpose of this systematized review is to review evidence within current peer reviewed literature relating to therapeutic claims of mood regulation including reduction of agitation and aggression, enhancing relaxation, and, improving overall wellbeing.
The data supplied is the responses gathered during 2018 - 2019 for the online study "Alarm t... more The data supplied is the responses gathered during 2018 - 2019 for the online study "Alarm tones, music and their elements: Analysis of reported waking sounds for the prevention of sleep inertia"(S McFarlane, J Garcia, D Verhagen, A Dyer). <br>This data is unfiltered and will need to be referenced against the study and questionnaire design (available as supplementary material of the manuscript) for correct processing and analysis. Participants are located on the first column with each corresponding question response in each subsequent column. Questionnaire item numbers are located at the top of each column. <br>This data was encoded using windows.
Materializing Digital Futures, 2022
Australasian Drama Studies, 2015
M+M was produced for the 2013 Melbourne International Festival of the Arts as a co-production bet... more M+M was produced for the 2013 Melbourne International Festival of the Arts as a co-production between the Festival, Theatre Works and Daniel Schlusser Ensemble.1 Billed as a 'free adaptation' of Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita, it would be more accurately described as an autonomous theatre creation that was built around motifs, characters and the action of the novel, infused with the distinctive humour and anarchy of Bulgakov but also creating its own narrative possibilities. Set in the confines of a prison or asylum, fracturing the source materials across performers, binding the character of Margarita with the punk-protesters Pussy Riot and the Christ-story, the production could be read as examining political tyranny in Russia both past and present, or more broadly as an examination of the role of resistance, unconditional love, sacrifice, and individual acts of artistic creation as a ritualistic defence of the polis.
Drawing largely on cinematic theories of sound, film aesthetics, and neuroscientific understandin... more Drawing largely on cinematic theories of sound, film aesthetics, and neuroscientific understandings of the eye and the gaze, we undertake a comparative analysis of two film sequences to address these questions: the chase sequence" from the animated film, Monsters, Inc. (Pete Docter, David Silverman, and Lee Unkrich, 2001); and the Omaha Beach landing sequence from Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg, 1998).
Ergonomics, 2018
Abstract We investigated the effects of low frequency whole body vibration on heart rate variabil... more Abstract We investigated the effects of low frequency whole body vibration on heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of autonomic nervous system activation that differentiates between stress and drowsiness. Fifteen participants underwent two simulated driving tasks for 60 min each: one involved whole-body 4–7 Hz vibration delivered through the car seat, and one involved no vibration. The Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS), a subjective measure of drowsiness, demonstrated a significant increase in drowsiness during the task. Within 15–30 min of exposure to vibration, autonomic (sympathetic) activity increased (p < .01) in response to the stress of maintaining alertness and performance when drowsy, and peaked at 60 min (p < .001). Changes in three other HRV domains [higher LF/HF ratios, lower RMSSD (ms) and pNN50 (%) values] were consistent with increased sympathetic activation. These findings have implications for the future development of equivalent drowsiness contours leading to improvements in road safety. Practitioner summary: The effects of physical vibration on driver drowsiness have not been well investigated. This laboratory-controlled study found characteristic changes in heart rate variability (HRV) domains that indicated progressively increasing neurological effort in maintaining alertness in response to low frequency vibration, which becomes significant within 30 min. Abbreviations: ANS: autonomic nervous system; Ctrl: control; EEG: electroencephalography; HF: the power in high frequency range (0.15 Hz-0.4Hz) in the PSD relected parasympathetic activity only; HRV: heart rate variability; KSS: karolinska sleepiness scale; LF: the power in low frequency range (0.04 Hz-0.15Hz) in the PSD reflected both sympathetic and parasympathetic activity of the autonomic nervous system; LF/HF ratio: the ratio of LF to HF indicated the balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic activity; RMSSD: the root mean square of difference of adjacent RR interval; pNN50: the number of successive RR interval pairs that differed by more than 50 ms divided by the total number of RR intervals; RR interval: the differences between successive R-wave occurrence times; PSD: power spectral density; RTP: research training program; SD: standard deviation; SEM: standard error of the Mean; Vib: vibration
What constitutes life, what counts as a sentient being, and who gets to determine what lives are ... more What constitutes life, what counts as a sentient being, and who gets to determine what lives are saved, punished, exploited and destroyed? Composed of eleven separate but connected installation works, Morbis Artis explores the question of organic life through particular artistic lenses, each taking on the moniker of disease to represent and embody the issues that challenge bare life today. Drawing upon Frances Stracey, the artists working on this exhibition consider Bio-art to represent ‘a crossover of art and the biological sciences, with living matter, such as genes, cells or animals, as its new media’.
There exists a long tradition of incorporating acoustic space as a creative parameter in musical ... more There exists a long tradition of incorporating acoustic space as a creative parameter in musical composition and performance. This creative potential has been extended by way of modern sensing and computing technology which allows the position of the listener to act as an input to interactive musical works in immersive, digital environments. Furthermore, the sophistication of sensing technology has reached a point where barriers to implementing these digital interactive musical systems in the physical world are dissolving. In this research we have set out to understand what new modes of artistic performance might be enabled by these interactive spatial musical systems, and what the analysis of these systems can tell us about the compositional principles of arranging musical elements in space as well as time. We have applied a practice-based approach, leveraging processes of software development, composition, and performance to create a complete system for composing and performing wh...
Clocks & Sleep
Sleep inertia is a measurable decline in cognition some people experience upon and following awak... more Sleep inertia is a measurable decline in cognition some people experience upon and following awakening. However, a systematic review of the current up to date evidence of audio as a countermeasure has yet to be reported. Thus, to amend this gap in knowledge, the authors conducted this systematic review beginning with searches in three primary databases for studies published between the inception date of each journal and the year 2020. Search terms contained “Sleep Inertia” paired with: “Sound”; “Noise”; “Music”; “Alarm”; “Alarm Tone”; “Alarm Sound”; “Alarm Noise”; “Alarm Music”; “Alarm Clock”; “Fire Alarm”, and “Smoke Alarm”. From 341 study results, twelve were identified for inclusion against a priori conditions. A structured narrative synthesis approach generated three key auditory stimulus themes-(i) Noise, (ii) Emergency tone sequences; Voice Alarms and Hybrids, and (iii) Music. Across themes, participants have been assessed in two situational categories: emergency, and non-emer...
PLoS ONE, 2020
Sleep inertia is a potentially dangerous reduction in human alertness and occurs 0-4 hours after ... more Sleep inertia is a potentially dangerous reduction in human alertness and occurs 0-4 hours after waking. The type of sound people set as their alarm for waking has been shown to reduce the effects of sleep inertia, however, the elemental musical factors that underpin these waking sounds and their relationships remain unclear. The goal of this research is to understand how a particular sound or music chosen to assist waking may counteract sleep inertia, and more specifically, what elements of these sounds may contribute to its reduction. Through an anonymous, self-report online questionnaire, fifty participants (N = 50) reported attributes of their preferred waking sound, their feeling towards the waking sound, and perceived sleep inertia after waking. This data enabled the analysis and comparison between these responses to identify statistically significant relationships. Our results did not return any significant association between sleep inertia and the reported waking sound type,...
Clocks & Sleep
Sleep inertia is a decline in cognition one may experience upon and following awakening. A recent... more Sleep inertia is a decline in cognition one may experience upon and following awakening. A recent study revealed that an alarm sound perceived as melodic by participants displayed a significant relationship to reports of reductions in perceived sleep inertia. This current research builds on these findings by testing the effect melody and rhythm exhibit on sleep inertia for subjects awakening in their habitual environments. Two test Groups (A and B; N = 10 each) completed an online psychomotor experiment and questionnaire in two separate test sessions immediately following awakening from nocturnal sleep. Both groups responded to a control stimulus in the first session, while in the second session, Group A experienced a melodic treatment, and Group B a rhythmic treatment. The results show that the melodic treatment significantly decreased attentional lapses, false starts, and had a significantly improved psychomotor vigilance test (PVT) performance score than the control. There was no...
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Videos by Darrin Verhagen
Papers by Darrin Verhagen
authenticity of the latter. Through spatial and timbral cues, we can be convinced that there might be something ‘wrong’ with the landscape of the world we are hearing. In these instances, sound’s “added value” (Chion, 1994, 5) materializes images, projecting a believable reality into environments and events that are alien, unstable, monstrous, or
spectacular. But there is an alternative to this process of audio authentication. Through sonic dematerialization (or shifting re-materialization) we can also suspect that there might be something ‘wrong’ with ‘us’. Maybe our point of audition has suddenly moved
without cause. We may witness an action that should be making a loud noise but is silent. Perhaps there is a ubiquitous sound we are hearing for which there is no apparent justification or point of origin. Materialization can involve hearing dangerous things. Dematerialization and disorientation indicate a different form of danger, however. They
have the capacity to undermine the certainty of our perspective, positioning the audient as other (Redmond, 2011), perhaps a clueless observer, or worse - through diminished or seemingly damaged faculties - a potentially unreliable witness to a particular unhinged moment in space and time. Whilst, at a general level, there may be “…specific systems of expectation and hypothesis which spectators bring with them to the cinema” (Neale, 1990), sound is at its richest when it simultaneously supports such expectation generally, whilst taking advantage of the possibilities of surreptitious subterfuge specifically. The audience may know they are in an alien world, but how that world is heard at any given point may be as uncanny and ineffable in its specifics, as it may be confident and convincing overall.
Drawing on cinematic theories of sound, and neuroscientific understandings of the eye and the gaze, we undertake a comparative analysis of two film sequences: the ‘chase sequence’ from the animated film, Monsters, Inc. (Docter et al. 2001), and the first five minutes of the Omaha Beach landing scene from Saving Private Ryan (Spielberg, 1998). Both films involve complex sound design, moments of perceptual shock, spatial and temporal shifts in sound, and heightened sonic agency.
Six viewers were eye tracked, and the data gathered analyzed through a combination of close textual analysis and the statistical interpretation of collated gaze patterns (with the generation of heat and contour maps, for example). The viewers were shown these sequences twice: once with its normal audio field playing, and once with the sound taken out. In this chapter we interpret this data to answer the following questions: to what extent do viewers’ eyes follow narrative-based sound cues? How does the soundtrack affect viewer engagement and attention to detail? Is there an element of prediction and predictability in the way a viewer sees and hears? Do viewers’ eyes ‘wander’ when there is no sound to guide them where to look? Ultimately, we ask how important is sound to the cinematic experience of vision?