Overview
Research areas:
composition, spatial sound, practice research, archive, electronic music, sound art
Currently:
Research associate, Department of Music, Goldsmiths, University of London
Previously:
Post-doctoral researcher for PRAG-UK / Research England
PhD researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London
Practice Research Report
Bulley, James and Şahin, Özden. 2021. Practice Research - Report 1: What is practice research? and Report 2: How can practice research be shared?. Practice Research Advisory Group UK (PRAG-UK), London. https://doi.org/10.23636/1347
Two reports, authored as part of a collaborative post-doctorate with Dr Özden Şahin giving an overview of practice research in England, commissioned by the Practice Research Advisory Group UK (PRAG-UK) and funded by Research England. Published by PRAG-UK on the British Library Research Repository. The reports outline both the field of practice research, what it is, and how it can be shared.
Open access .pdf files of both practice research reports are available here: https://bl.iro.bl.uk/downloads/b3afceff-c502-4c59-8855-6fc5889a41f4?locale=en
REF2021 Impact Case Study
Bulley, James and Grierson, Michael. 2021. REF2021 Impact Case Study: Transforming institutional and public understanding of the history of electronic music through the Daphne Oram archive.
In 2006, Goldsmiths acquired the archive of the composer Daphne Oram (1925-2003). Through archival and practice research, writing and performance, researchers have brought much previously unknown music and written material into the public domain. As a result, Oram is now widely regarded as a visionary figure in the early development of electronic music – a history hitherto presented as the preserve of male musicians. But the project has also impacted upon public understandings of electronic music history more broadly. It has done this by 1) changing the ways that culture professionals – including programmers, artists, critics and historians – conceive of and present historical electronic music; and by 2) reaching hundreds of thousands of audience members, from whom evidence of a deepened, critical appreciation of electronic music history and practice has been gathered.
This REF Impact Case Study exploring the transformation of institutional and public understanding of electronic music through the Daphne Oram archive is available here.
Project
Bulley, James. 2019. 'Contact: A Journal for Contemporary Music’. https://www.contactjournal.gold.ac.uk/
Contact: A Journal for Contemporary Music was active from 1971–1990 and independently published by its editors. As with many independent print publications of that era, this has meant that, for readers and researchers operating in a contemporary digital landscape, the richness of its resource has been all but inaccessible. In recognition of this situation, in the years 2016–2019, the entire journal was digitised and made available over the course of a three-year research project led by Dr James Bulley, Research Associate in the Department of Music at Goldsmiths, University of London, in collaboration with former editor and co-founder of Contact, Professor Keith Potter, and with the assistance of Dr Settimio Fiorenzo Palermo and Gregory White. The project included developing best-practice techniques for the use of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on each article of Contact (creating a searchable, accessible and machine-readable database), aggregation of digitised articles across contemporary research search engines, digital preservation to the highest global standards, and the creation of metadata, licensing and digital object identifiers for each issue and article within the archive.
Funding and support for the digitisation project was provided by the Graduate School, Department of Music and Library at Goldsmiths, University of London. Particular thanks are owed to Andrew Gray, Dr John Lely, Dr Tom Perchard and Rebecca Randall for their invaluable advice and support for this project.
The fully digitised open access archive of Contact: A Journal for Contemporary Music (1971–1990) is available here: https://www.contactjournal.gold.ac.uk/
Book Section
Bulley, James. 2018. 'Progress Music': Daphne Oram, Geoffrey Jones and 'Trinidad and Tobago'. In: Geoffrey Cox, ed. Soundings: Documentary Film and the Listening Experience. Huddersfield: Huddersfield University Press, pp. 125-150. ISBN 9781862181540
Progress Music is an archival exploration of the work of British composer Daphne Oram and the extraordinary array of recordings that she made in the early 1960s in Trinidad and Tobago for Geoffrey Jones’ film of the same name.
Soundings: Documentary Film and the Listening Experience draws on the lived experience of sound’s capacity to move and shake us in direct, subtle and profound ways through speech, location sound, and music in documentary film. The associative, connotative and sheer emotive power of sound has the capacity to move and shake us in a myriad of direct, subtle and often profound ways. The implications of this for its role as speech, location sound, and music in documentary film are far-reaching. The writers in this book draw on the lived experience of sound’s resounding capacity as primary motivation for exploring these implications, united by the overarching theme of how listening is connected with acts of making sense both on its own terms and in conjunction with viewing.
An open access .pdf of Progress Music': Daphne Oram, Geoffrey Jones and 'Trinidad and Tobago' is available here: https://unipress.hud.ac.uk/plugins/books/17/format/12/
Bulley, James. 2023. Testimony. In: Elizabeth Price and Nina Wakeford, eds. Document of the testimony, deliberation and reflection of the Artist Citizens Jury 2022. London: Goldsmiths CCA, pp. 49-62. ISBN 9781739492410 [Book Section]
In November 2022, an Artist Citizens Jury was constituted by artists Elizabeth Price and Nina Wakeford at Goldsmiths CCA to explore and represent the experience of artists in Universities. Based on the model of a Citizens Jury, a form of participatory action research widely used in public and civic settings, the Artist Citizens Jury worked as a group to consider the following questions: Given the presence of artists in universities, and the recognition of practice-led research, how can parity be ensured with other disciplines? How can the allocation of research funding support art in universities?
The ‘Document of the testimony, deliberation and reflection of the Artist Citizens Jury 2022’ comprises a transcript of the event alongside recommendations and other associated materials including a proposal for an ‘Object for a citizens jury’ by artist Inbal Strauss.
An open access .pdf of Document of the testimony, deliberation and reflection of the Artist Citizens Jury 2022 is available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ddhsVvMMFvE3Ize1LqxhnOtDhS95VBHm/view / further information available here
PhD Thesis
Bulley, James. 2018. Sounding Materiality: Explorations In Resonant Practice. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London https://doi.org/10.25602/GOLD.00025918
A practice research PhD thesis exploring material agency in sound practice. The thesis describes novel techniques of live and spatial sound composition, and the ways in which these techniques can promote ecological ways of knowing.
The open access .pdf of Sounding Materiality is available here: https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/25918/1/MUS_thesis_BulleyJ_2018.pdf
Edited Journal
Bulley, James; Şahin, Özden; Drever, John L. and Aceti, Lanfranco, eds. 2018. Special Issue on Sound Curating, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, 22(3). 1071-4391
Special Issue of the Leonardo Electronic Almanac entitled Sound Curating, edited by Dr Özden Şahin, Dr James Bulley, Professor John Drever and Professor Lanfranco Aceti)
The open access version of The Leonardo Electronic Almanac Special Issue of Sound Art Curating is available here: https://www.leoalmanac.org/sound-curating/
Articles & Conference Proceedings
Bulley, James and Price, Astra. 2018. The Talking Drum. Leonardo Electronic Almanac, 22(1), ISSN 1071-4391
Article co-authored with Astra Price exploring the re-presentation with artist Bill Viola of Viola’s sound work The Talking Drum as part of Frieze Art Fair in 2017
An openly accessible version of The Talking Drum is available here: https://www.leoalmanac.org/the-talking-drum-james-bulley-astra-price/
BBC Proms Profile: Daphne Oram
Bulley, James . 2018. BBC Proms Profile: Daphne Oram. Pioneers of Sound, 2018(13)
An openly accessible version of BBC Proms Profile: Daphne Oram. Pioneers of Sound is available here: https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/24263/1/Bulley%20-%20BBC%20Proms%2013%20-%20Pioneers%20of%20Sound%20_%20Daphne%20Oram%20-%20Profile%20_%202018.pdf
Bulley, James . 2018. BBC Proms Profile: Still Point. Pioneers of Sound, 2018(13)
An openly accessible version of BBC Proms Profile: Still Point is available here: https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/24264/1/Bulley%20-%20BBC%20Proms%2013%20-%20Pioneers%20of%20Sound%20_%20Still%20Point%20Notes%20_%202018.pdf
Bulley, James . 2016. 'Progress Music': Daphne Oram, Geoffrey Jones and 'Trinidad and Tobago'. Bricks From The Kiln(2)
An openly accessible version of Progress Music': Daphne Oram, Geoffrey Jones and 'Trinidad and Tobago' in Bricks From the Kiln is available here: https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/18944/6/BFTK%232_TTC_JB_2.10.2017.pdf
Bulley, James and Gray, Andrew. 2017. RDM in the Performing Arts: Living Symphonies by Daniel Jones & James Bulley (Unit for Sound Practice Research, Goldsmiths, University of London). In: , ed. LEARN Toolkit of Best Practice for Research Data Management. London: University College London, pp. 59-65.
Bulley, James and Jones, Daniel. 2011. Variable 4: A Dynamical Composition for Weather Systems. Proceedings of International Computer Music Conference, (ICMC 2011)
Keynotes & Talks
Bulley, James. 20 May 2024. Creative practice and practice research. Plymouth Universitty, United Kingdom. [Keynote talk]
Bulley, James. 2 May 2024. Practice Research (Keynote). School of Music, Lucerne University, Switzerland. [Keynote talk]
Balgiu, Alex; Bulley, James, Casser, Anja and Walsh-Lister, Andrew. 2024. Curators talk and introductory notes. In: Tune in to Reality! symposium, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Germany [Talk]
Bulley, James and Sahin, Ozden. 2019. Making Practice Research Visible & Open. In: Web of Arts Seminar. Open Data Institute, London, United Kingdom 10 April 2019. [Talk]
Bulley, James and Sahin, Ozden. 2019. Practice Research: Proposition and Form. In: Capturing practice research: improving visibility and searchability. London, United Kingdom 15 March 2019. [Keynote talk]
Bulley, James. 2018. Sounding Materiality: Explorations with music, natural systems and touch-sound-landscapes. In: Sensing Nature: Wellbeing with nature with sight impairment. Wellcome Collection, London, United Kingdom 30 October 2018. [Conference talk]
Bulley, James. 2017. Living Symphonies. In: Sound and Environment. University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom 29 June—1 July 2017. [Conference talk]
Bulley, James. 2017. 'Progress Music': Daphne Oram, Geoffrey Jones and 'Trinidad and Tobago. In: Sound and Music in Documentary Film. University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom 23—24 February 2017. [Conference talk]
Bulley, James. 2016. Tactus: Sound Scores for the Blind and Visually Impaired. In: 'Make:Shift': Crafts Council Conference 2016. Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester, United Kingdom 10 November 2016. [Conference talk]
Spillane, Jeremiah; Givan, Benjamin; Hannum, Andrew and Bulley, James. 2016. Open in Action: Music, Computing and Open Data. In: Open in Action: Music, Computing and Open Data. Special Collections Reading Room, Goldsmiths, United Kingdom 24/10/2016. [Workshop]