Composition and Worldbuilding: Music of the Oneira Project

This practice-based research explores the sonic-musical worldbuilding aspect of the Oneira Project, an expansive, multimodal, intermedia project that aims to create and develop a comprehensive, immersive fictional world. The creative output of the DMA is twofold, consisting firstly of a portfolio of compositions that explore three avenues of sonic-musical worldbuilding: fictional soundscapes, the use of microtonality to create fictional musical systems, and sound-based diegesis. These were chosen as they are key to representing places, peoples, and events – three central aspects of all worldbuilding practices. The second element of the creative portfolio is an accompanying paratextual library of in-world sounds and sonic-musical excerpts. The library provides unique affordances for listeners, including the possibility to gain familiarity with specific aspects of the Oneira world, as well as establishing an ongoing, open-ended, catalogue-style library for all the sonic-musical elements that are created in populating and expanding the world. The library, initiated in this research project, is a unique creative project in itself and a significant feature of the wider Oneira Project. The practice-based approach of my research is grounded in key theoretical perspectives and creative considerations that enable the creation and representation of a fictional world through sound and music, as well as in related experimental electronic music and sonic arts practices. These perspectives, considerations, and the approaches to sonic worldbuilding, are identified and investigated in an exegesis that serves as a discursive companion to the portfolio and sound library. The exegesis also reflexively examines the portfolio and accompanying library, and sets the creative pathway for the ongoing development of the Oneira Project.