Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC)

General information

Since its founding in 2001 the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC), Queen’s University Belfast has become a leading institute for research and creative practice in sonic arts. A purpose designed building with state-of-the-art facilities was opened by Karlheinz Stockhausen in 2004 during the Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music which is hosted annually by SARC.

Key areas of interest include: composition and performance; improvisation, virtual instruments; interactivity and interaction design; spatial audio; hearing and perception; distributed performance; site-specific sound art, critical and cultural theories of sonic arts; history of sonic arts, community engagement in sonic arts; and relationships to the creative industries in local, regional and international contexts.

SARC is based in the School of Creative Arts at Queen’s and enjoys a wide interdisciplinary and collaborative network which includes researchers in Psychology, Architecture, Law, Electronic Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Our researchers have developed partnerships with organisations that include the DTS, Hewlett Packard, the Metropolitan Arts Centre Belfast (the MAC), as well as higher education institutions includingIRCAM, Stanford University and University of Michigan. SARC has over fifty masters and PhD students who come from all over the world to work in our unique research community. Many of our post-graduate researchers have successfully pursued careers in the higher education and creative industry sectors, and have obtained positions including at institutions such as MIT, McGill University or the University of Bournemouth.