Research Article
Evoking the Mythic: Hearing the Sound of Sukhāvatī
@ARTICLE{10.4108/eai.31-3-2021.169171, author={M.D.F. Evans and S. Hall and J. Dooley}, title={Evoking the Mythic: Hearing the Sound of Sukhāvatī}, journal={EAI Endorsed Transactions on Creative Technologies}, volume={8}, number={27}, publisher={EAI}, journal_a={CT}, year={2021}, month={3}, keywords={Interactive audiovisual composition, image and sound interaction, transcoding}, doi={10.4108/eai.31-3-2021.169171} }- M.D.F. Evans
S. Hall
J. Dooley
Year: 2021
Evoking the Mythic: Hearing the Sound of Sukhāvatī
CT
EAI
DOI: 10.4108/eai.31-3-2021.169171
Abstract
Buddhism has a rich visual history of ancient paintings and sculpture used to evoke spiritual and archetypal concepts. One of the key figures in Mahayana Buddhism is the celestial Buddha Amitabha, also known as the Buddha of Infinite Light. Several Buddhist texts describe the “Sukhāvatī” the land that that Amitabha inhabits. The texts not only describe the physical characteristics of this environment but also the soundscape. This paper discusses the process of transcoding an image of Amitabha into sound to create an interactive sonic environment. This process explores how choosing sounds based upon the literary description, can be a way of creating a link between an image and the literary counterpart.
Copyright © 2021 M.D.F. Evans et al., licensed to EAI. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits unlimited use, distribution and reproduction in any medium so long as the original work is properly cited.
