Olivia Louvel

Olivia Louvel

Research Student

20172025

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Research interests

My thesis examines the interplay between voice and sculpture to understand their manifold interrelationships in the fields of fine art, sound art and new media, and to establish the concept of voice sculpture

Areas of research: Contemporary Art, Fine Art, Sound Art, Sound, Practice-Based Research.

Specialising in art, electroacoustic music, hybridity, installation, musique concrète, sound sculpture, video art, voice.

Scholarly biography

As a doctoral researcher at the University of Brighton, I investigate the relationship between voice and sculpture across the Fine Art and Digital Music & Sound Arts departments. 

I have been awarded a travel and research grant by the Henry Moore Foundation to investigate Lukas Kühne' s sound sculpture in Seyðisfjörður, Iceland, hosted by the Skaftfell Visual Art Center's artist residency programme.

Research outputs [author]: 'Baschet’s Voice Leaf: The voice wrapped in the sculptural leaf' (Organised Sounds, Cambridge University Press, 2025); 'Lukas Kühne’s Tvísöngur: Sculpture for a Concrete, Uncompressed Voice' (Divergence Press, University of Huddersfield, 2024); ‘The Whole Inside’ (Future Now, Aesthetica Art Prize 2021: 125 contemporary artists’, 2021); ‘A generative sound mural: The Whole Inside. Sounding the body’ (Leonardo Music Journal, The MIT Press, 2020).

Research outputs [practitioner]: 'doggerLANDscape' broadcast on Late Junction/BBC Radio 3 (2023), shown at Towner Cinema, Towner Eastbourne (2024) and at APT Gallery London (2025); 'LOL' a site-specific sonic intervention delivered through the public address system of Middlesbrough’s CCTV surveillance network at Middlesbrough Art Weekender 2022; 'Doggerland Channels', a sound art installation at Phoenix Art Space (2022) for Sound Art Brighton, and re-installed at Middlesbrough Art Week (2023); ‘The Sculptor Speaks’, a broadcast on Resonance Extra and an audio-visual installation at The Hepworth Wakefield (2021) and at Towner Eastbourne (2023).

Awards: Ivor Novello Award Best Sound Art at the Ivors Classical Awards 2023 for 'LOL', a sonic intervention delivered through the public address system of Middlesbrough’s CCTV surveillance network; a selection for the Longlist at the Aesthetica Art Prize 2021 for 'The Whole Inside'; a nomination Best Sound Art at the Ivors Composer Awards 2020 for 'The Sculptor Speaks'; a Qwartz Album Award at the Qwartz Electronic Music Awards 2011.

Approach to teaching

I am interested in the hybridisation of the arts, linking techniques and terminologies between fine art and sound.

During my PhD, I gained experience as an Associate Lecturer in Fine Art teaching at the undergraduate level. I led seminars, conducted workshops and supervised students' final dissertations. Additionally, I lectured on 'Hybrid Encounters: Art and Sound’ for the Fine Art BA (level 4 students).

For the Digital Music & Sound Arts BA, I lectured on 'Sound Sculptures (Part I: Acoustic and Part II: Speaker-powered)'.

Education/Academic qualification

Master, 'Resounding the Voice. On repurposing the archival material of voice, from analogue to digital', School of Art and Media

20192020

Award Date: 23 Sept 2020

Bachelor, 'The Sculpted Voice: an exploration of voice in sound art', School of Art and Media

20162019

Award Date: 27 Jun 2019

External positions

Hepworth Research Network. Symposium ‘Contemporary Artists and Barbara Hepworth’, University of Huddersfield

15 Oct 2021

Seminar 'Hepworth Resounds', Yorkshire Sound Women Network

1 Jun 2021

Keywords

  • M Music
  • sound art
  • NB Sculpture
  • Sculpture

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