Noise Re(in)duction
Artist statement
by
Nico Daleman
go to article
I am listening to noise.
The same noise that you are listening right now.
I am recording the sound of this noise, and I am going to play it back into the room again and again until the resonant frequencies of my voice reinforce themselves so that any semblance of noise is cancelled.
What you will hear, then, are the processes of spectral manipulation, articulated by their spatial distribution, and a re-composition of my voice craved out from the noise.
I regard this activity not so much as a demonstration of a digital synthesis technique but as a way to speculate about the re-induction of noise in our everyday lives.
Noise Re(in)duction is an artistic research project that explores the possibilities of noise reduction technologies as sonic material for music composition, performance and sound art. By deconstructing the different methodologies of digital audio restoration and repurposing them as aesthetic material, Noise Re(in)duction aims to question the prescriptive listening modes imposed by tech corporations. Listening becomes a speculative process that challenges the boundaries of various understandings of noise and signal, transmission and transduction, glitch and reparation.
What kind of speculative synthesis can be achieved by the misuse of noise cancelling technologies? What kind of modes of listening are these technologies encouraging? What is lost in the process of noise cancelling, and how can it be made audible and perceptible again?
This research is informed by an understanding of sound and music as mediated manifestations of social listening practices, building upon the discussions found in the fields of sound studies, media studies and philosophy of technology. The aim is to unveil the cultural and aesthetic contradictions between different understandings of noise: a philosophical one that positions noise as a positive agent of possibility; and a technical one that understands noise as a negative entity that needs to be controlled, reduced and repaired. This text presents an overview of the listening situations, aesthetic methodologies and media manifestations that contextualize the theoretical framework in the praxis. What started as an interest in the inner workings of noise reduction technologies has evolved during the past two years (2024-2025) into an expansive, intermedial, non-linear research project whose outcomes include lectures, performances, essays and sound installations. Through interactive demonstrations of the principles of noise cancelling, and through a reflective discussion of the methodologies employed in the different iterations of the research, the text aims to complement the theoretical underpinnings of my artistic practice.
First, a contextualization of the history and the principles underlying noise-cancelling technologies is provided. This is followed by an overview of Noise Re(in)duction as an artistic research project, along with a detailed description of the artistic methodologies found in three different manifestations: Noise Re(in)duction, Abfall, and Negative Voids. Each piece is a representation of the continuous development of the compositional strategies through dialectical oppositions that are mediated through noise cancelling algorithms such as noise-signal, resource-waste and absence-refusal
The underlying principle of Active Noise Cancelling technologies is grounded in the phenomenon of destructive interference. In short, a signal that is summed with an identical phase-inverted copy of itself results in a zero-sum. This principle is extended to more complex signals such as environmental noise. The first prototypes of consumer-grade noise cancelling headphones were developed by Amar Bose in the late 1970s, inspired by the disturbing and loud noise made by airplane turbines during commercial flights. (see Hagood 2011). Constant sources of noise, such as electrical hums, industrial machinery or jet engines, can be attenuated by applying the destructive interference principle: a short sample of the noise is sufficient to approximate a phase-inverted signal that can be added to the environmental noise, thus cancelling it. However, in more complex sound environments where noise sources vary rapidly, the instability of the noise profile challenges the effectiveness of the destructive interference approach.
The computational developments in audio analysis and interfacing that have been incorporated into consumer headphones provide further possibilities for exploration and manipulation of different types of data, such as gyroscopes, accelerometers and microphone arrays for the purpose of spatial audio and binaural rendering. Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) technologies are nowadays a common feature in consumer wireless headphones, enabling the transformation of everyday listening into a hybrid experience of mediation and immersion.
Active Noise Cancelling systems constantly capture acoustic environmental data through microphones, analysing its spectral characteristics and removing sounds that are deemed as undesired. Although the main principle of destructive interference remains at the core of ANC, it differs from static noise-profiling headphones in the inclusion of an adaptive filter. In its simplest form, an adaptive filter within ANC functions by comparing two captured signals: a reference noise and a main signal which contains both the desired signal (e.g. music or speech) and the environmental noise. According to its technical definition as “a computational device that attempts to model the relationship between two signals in an iterative manner” (Douglas 1999), an adaptive filter continuously updates its coefficients automatically, tracking different forms of noise and responding in real time to changing environments, such as urban soundscapes. Adaptive filters are therefore suitable for reducing undesired signals in a wide range of listening environments.
By attempting to establish a relationship between signals that contain unknown data, adaptive filters position their output signal within the speculative realm. The result is a form of sound synthesis in which the relationship between two signals is determined by the borders between the algorithmic definitions of noise and signal. The spectral composition of the desired signal is defined by the initial parameters and the precision of the filter’s coefficients. The results can provide diametrically different sonic experiences, thus introducing another type of noise into the experience of sound: a glitch in the perception of reality.
Noise Re(in)duction is the main title of this ongoing artistic project based on the research of Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) headphone devices. It coalesces two of my main parallel aesthetic interests: on the one hand an interest in machine listening and audio analysis, and on the other hand, an interest in the potential of spatial practices that employ headphones as their primary medium.
Applications of machine listening and audio analysis include not only soundscape descriptions, virtual assistants or music recommendation systems, but are also present in audio repair software. Software suites, such as iZotope’s RX 11, consists in a series of modules or processes devised for background noise removal, dialogue isolation and audio cleanup, removing unwanted artifacts such as clicks, clips, distortions, hums, reverberation, wind rumble, coughs and claps, among many others. The initial inspiration for this project emerged from a feature found in some RX modules that allow to monitor the residual noise of the repair processes. By performing offline signal operations that resemble the methodologies of ANC headphones, these monitoring capabilities allow for more complex and thorough results.
From an artistic perspective, the use of headphones as a medium for sonic explorations presents a series of challenges and contradictions in which the relations between space, body and perception are contested (see Ouzounian 2006). Conversely, Noise Re(in)duction considers ANC headphones as providers of the possibility of a sensitive augmentation, akin to the see-through logic of augmented reality interfaces such as goggles and lenses, instead of a confrontation against the perception of space through sound. Hear-through listening modes such as “transparency mode” promise a seamless integration in a mixed experience of reality which aims to conceal a constant mediation. In this case, mediation is not only concealed through an immersive experience that obscures the listening device itself, but also by pushing to the background the very information they mediate, i.e. the imperceptible phase-inverted noise. In the adaptation of the parameters of embedded algorithms and the active modification of the environment, ANC headphones are constantly producing and reproducing content in the form of negative signals.
A central point of reference for headphone sound art is the work of Christina Kubisch, particularly pieces such as Walking Cities, or Orchestra in a Wire. Self-constructed headphones that capture and reproduce electromagnetic frequencies allow the experience of parallel sonic worlds that are hidden within the pulsations of the electromagnetic ether. Headphones function as an interface to access new forms of realities, not through the superimposition of a pre-recorded sound into the soundscape (see Hokosawa 1984), but rather through active exploration and embodied speculation.
Following Kubisch’s speculative approach, Noise Re(in)duction explores the ways in which these devices enable the possibilities of perceiving other realities through the mobility and embodiment that headphones afford. This implies a methodology of active listening, where the goals of noise cancelling algorithms are inverted: Instead of a mere act of signal cleansing, Noise Re(in)duction transforms its residues into opportunities for speculation. Noise cancelling is therefore understood not as an attempt at signal optimization but rather as a process of signal entanglement and uncertainty.
The first outcome of Noise Re(in)duction took the form of a lecture performance. Drawing inspiration from Alvin Lucier’s piece I am sitting in a room, I modified his text composition to highlight the generative processes behind the noise reduction techniques. From the perspective of a generative composition, ANC represents the inversion of Lucier’s procedure: instead of presenting a speech signal that transforms into unintelligible noise due to the influence of the spatial acoustic of the environment, ANC transforms complex environmental noise by carving out a desired signal from it. By removing any form of acoustic spatial reference, the listening subject becomes isolated and decontextualized, thereby being positioned in a non-place (see Daleman 2025).
The overall structure of the piece is divided into four main sections, each corresponding to a specific noise reduction process applied to a field recording of each of the four different geographical positions. Each section provides the opportunity to experience two conflicting and simultaneous perspectives: the denoised result, and the residual signal, thus rendering the operation of noise reduction audible.
Each of the four algorithmic processes (noise-gate, de-clip, de-click, de-hum) is inspired by the modules found in the iZotope RX 11 Audio Repair suite. Rather than being implemented as a technical reproduction of the software functioning, the recreation of these algorithms via MaxMSP exemplifies the diverse approaches to cancelling noise. Likewise, this evidences the various manifestations of unwanted audio signals across the field recordings and their repercussion on the process of repair, both for the “cleaned” signal and its residual counterpart. Noise-gate suppresses the low amplitude component of different frequency bins, de-clip suppresses excessive levels, de-click identifies and removes discontinuities, while de-hum addresses unwanted low-frequency elements found in electrical systems.
The soundscape consists of field recordings of the urban environments of Bogotá, Berlin and St. Petersburg, as well as the rural environment of Guatapé, a small town in the outskirts of Medellin, Colombia. The aim is to illustrate the different sonic profiles of these places and compare them to each other. These recordings, conceived as background noise, are segmented and mapped onto a two-dimensional matrix that classifies and clusters them according to their spectral characteristics, allowing a more nuanced experience of the spectral consequences of ANC.
This physical setup consists of two omnidirectional measurement microphones capturing the public address system and the room response of the venue. While the performer recites the alternate version of Lucier’s text and his further theoretical musings, the processed field recordings are reproduced, and the microphones capture the combined signal of text and sound. The ANC system is activated through each repetition of the text, while attempting to remove the environmental noise reproduced through the loudspeaker system.
The residual signal of the ANC process is then captured, compared and concatenated with the matching sample points found in the matrix. Field recordings are confronted and superposed with the byproducts of their own processing, thus re(in)ducing the noise into the background noise again and creating a feedback loop of “re-induction.” The compositional process becomes a speculative cartography in which the sonic materials derive from the acoustic byproduct that the algorithms attempt to erase.
The algorithmic system is designed to facilitate the exploration of sources and nuances in a performative and improvisatory manner, avoiding linear constraints or sequential time arrangements. Instead, the performance unfolds through the contingent interactions between the material provided (i.e. the field recordings) and the acoustic characteristics of the venue. A spectral freeze gives the performer the possibility to trap a section of the files and repeat them in a loop, allowing them to insist on a particular spectral profile. Listening therefore becomes a crucial skill employed to create a sonic result that enhances the tensions between noise and signal. As such the speculative synthesis process does not necessarily take place within the intricacies of the digital signal processes, but rather, and more concretely, in the synthesis of the thesis-antithesis relation between noise and signal, clean and waste.
Like so, this process attempts to render perceptible the ways in which ANC algorithms understand noise as contingent upon its environmental context, revealing its relational nature and social dimension. By making evident the difference between the sonic gestures that remain and the ones that get cancelled, aims to interrogate the socio-political implications of the underlying mechanics of aesthetic moralism (see Thompson 2017) found in the algorithmic definitions of noise.
Building upon the methodologies developed for the lecture performance, Abfall extends this exploration to the audiovisual domain. Working through processes of signal decomposition and spectral data visualization, this piece introduces a layer of perceptual nuance in which visual and spatial elements enhance the experience of speculating through the residues of technological processes.
Abfall was presented as part of Errant Sound’s group exhibition Hellhören at the Kunstpunkt Galerie in Berlin Mitte in April-May of 2025. The audiovisual installation consists of two video monitors, two microphones and headphones. Microphones capture the acoustic environment of the gallery (created by the other parallel sound-art works), while headphones make the audience aware of their own presence, encouraging them to shape the installation’s evolving sonic behaviour. The two video screens, positioned as visual anchors in the space, display abstracted spectrograms and distorted digital remnants of removed noise.
The aim was to transform the already complex soundscape of the sound art group exhibition into digital artefacts that can be experienced both sonically and visually. Accordingly, Abfallexpands on the significance of embodied and spatial listening within the process of noise cancelling and technological mediation. By amplifying the discarded and rendering the act of reduction visible, Abfall positions the listener in a speculative realm, not only within its technological acoustic process, but also in a spatial and contextual environment. The use of headphones emulates the ANC functioning, presenting a confrontation with the other artworks within the gallery that are then understood as sonic residue. Abfall invites the audience to perform a speculative process that interferes with experiencing the artworks as a whole.
The visual comparison of the processed and discarded signals by the algorithm inverts the dialectical relation between signal and noise, presenting them not as opposite forces, but rather as complementary manifestations of the same unity. The opposite visualizations draw attention to a form of acoustic negative space that has been left unexplored in its aesthetics and artistic dimensions, dismissed as waste. Rather than presenting the spectrograms as truthful representations of the captured sound signals (a rather trivial pursuit), the visualization’s layout includes both signal and noise as well as amplitude and phase. The resulting abstract images, although visually appealing, vaguely represent the captured or processed signals, inducing a state of cognitive saturation.
Negative Voids emerges as a development of the concept of a negative acoustic space found in the visual representations of the spectrograms. Taking the form of an installative music performance where collaborative duos encourage cultural and artistic exchange, Negative Voids considers the consequences on the sonic imprint of the individual and the society at large. It is conceived as a two-day event that aims to transform its venue (in this case Morphine Raum) into an active sonic system, where space becomes an interface to explore the different agents of technological modes of listening. The setup consists of two speakers positioned on opposite sides of the room, facing each other. The room is divided by a curtain, restricting the audience to accessing only one space at a time, having access to only one performer and their corresponding speaker. The two performers are positioned on either side of the curtain, with a microphone directed at each speaker. Tension arises as the audience is able to perceive both rooms simultaneously, without being present in the other.
Each night proposes a different intention towards listening. The first night, framed under the concept of absence, features sound artists Roberta Busechian and Augustė Vickunaitė. The second night, based on the concept of refusal, presents Mariana Carvalho and Nour Sokhon. The performers are invited to activate the space through sound, gestures and texts, while audiences enter a system where listening becomes a conscious act of doubt. Rather than aiming to a concrete sonic composition, the results of the project are found within the process of creation, translation, and transduction of different sonic materials and their social manifestations.
The decontextualization of signals through noise reduction makes evident the absence of a medium, while the recontextualization of its byproducts reinterprets them as compositional material, refusing their imposed definition as noise. Accordingly, the project situates negative sonic spaces as intentional voids in our sonic landscapes while revealing the consequences of cancelling noise out of our relationship with the environment, culture and technology.
Compositionally, the interaction between the performer is anchored on the use of adaptive filters. Each of the performer’s outputs is processed as noise by the other, while their own outgoing signal is reproduced and analysed in the room. In each artist’s particular interchange with the adaptive filters, the processes of adaptation, control and erasure are negotiated through gestures of iteration, repetition, silence and difference. The room division serves to exacerbate the prevailing feeling of uncertainty and speculation, thereby placing the audience and the artists in a vulnerable position. In order to establish a state of stasis, the system oscillates not only between feedback and processing, but also between feedforward and prediction. Once again, the re(in)duction of signal processing residues into the system creates and enhances the possibility for a speculative sound synthesis.
The different artistic iterations here presented are examples of my engagement with the fascinating and intellectually stimulating topic of noise cancelling headphones and the ramifications across the several fields of inquiry that converge upon this subject. Through an active recreation and manipulation of some of these algorithms, I have explored their technological function and their capabilities as a sound synthesis methodology. The results are manifested in an aesthetic of noise music, which considers noise in relation to its signal counterpart, rather than a fetishized goal in itself.
Furthermore, engaging with the nuances of the algorithms has revealed some of the underlying assumptions regarding the valuation of noise and signal. Media technologies are often conceptualized as neutral mechanisms of information transmission, while noise and information become rationalized phenomena that can be manipulated for optimization and productivity. ANC algorithms operate as one of the more inconspicuous forms of sensory manipulation through content production: by presupposing a pre-existing “clean” signal, they create content that is not intended to be perceived as such, but rather to disappear into the background.
Instead, Noise Re(in)duction sees media as an affective mechanism that actively engages with our perception. My aim is to turn this attention not only to the acoustic waste which serves as the basis of sonic artistic creation, but also to the overall effects of mediation in our contemporary condition. The Speculative Sound Synthesis is positioned in a realm of both intense cognitive endeavour and vulnerable perceptual openness.
Even though I have raised questions and exposed the methodologies and processes that have guided my research on noise cancelling technologies, several underlying consequences of this process are yet to be explored. A broader media-history contextualization is needed in order to identify the circumstances through technological advance have re-defined various manifestations of noise and has deemed them worth of removal. This includes the identification of noise sources in early forms of telecommunication, such as telegraphs and telephones, and the consequent development of masking filters and through psychoacoustic research that inform compression codes such as MP3, and spatial audio through head-related transfer functions (see Schulze 2018).
Indeed, although adaptive filtering has gained renewed attention in the context of machine learning and artificial intelligence, its principles have been used for decades in telecommunications and control engineering, in processes such as echo cancellation and feedback suppression.
Further theoretical components include an in-depth consideration of the Schafferian soundscape and its relation to aesthetic moralism (see Thompson 2017), as well as a cultural differentiation its sociopolitical implications (see Attali 1985 and James 2021). This will manifest in outcomes that include their implementation in multichannel audio systems, the recreation of the headphone devices through 3D-printed prototypes, sound walks, and telematic performances.
How can noise reduction algorithms be re-imagined to reveal, rather than obscure, the complexities of sonic environments? How can sound art challenge societal norms about what constitutes noise or silence? What new forms of musical aesthetics can emerge from digital residual material like clicks, distortion, and echoes? These questions open the possibilities for developing an artistic research practice in which speculation becomes a key component of the synthesis of its sonic results.
Attali, Jacques. 1985. Noise: The Political Economy of Music, Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Augé, Marc.1995. Non-places: An introduction to supermodernity. Translated by John Howe. London: Verso Books.
Daleman, Nico. 2024: “Noise Re(in)duction” Speculative Sound Synthesis Symposium. Institute für Elektronische Musik, IEM, Graz. https://speculative.iem.at/symposium/docs/proceedings/daleman/
Daleman, Nico. 2025. “Induction of Sonic Distance. Active noise Cancelling Headphones and the Imposition of Sonic Realities.” In A Peer Journal Review About 14(1): 27.40 https://doi.org/10.7146/aprja.v14i1.160271
Douglas, Scott. C. 1999. "Adaptive Filtering" in Digital Processing Handbook. Edited by Vijay K. Madisetti and Douglas B. Williams. CRC Press.
Hagood, Mack. 2011. “Quiet comfort: Noise, otherness, and the mobile production of personal space”. American Quarterly, 63(3):573-589.
Hagood, Mack. 2019. Hush: Media and sonic self-control. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Hayles, N. Katherine. 1999. How We Became Posthuman. Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Hosokawa, Shuhei. 1984. “The Walkman Effect.” Popular Music 4: 165–80.
James, Robin. 2019. The sonic episteme: Acoustic resonance, neoliberalism, and biopolitics. Duke University Press.
Ouzounian, Gascia. 2006. "Embodied sound: Aural architectures and the body." Contemporary Music Review 25 (1-2): 69-79.
Simondon, Gilbert. 2020. Individuation in light of notions of form and information.Translated by Taylor Adkins. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Schafer, R. Murray. 1977. The soundscape: Our sonic environment and the tuning of the world. Simon and Schuster.
Schulze, Holger. 2018. The Sonic Persona. An Anthropology of Sound. London: Bloomsbury
Thompson, Marie. 2017 Beyond unwanted sound: Noise, affect and aesthetic moralism. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
Voegelin, Salomé. 2010. Listening to noise and silence. Towards a philosophy of sound art. London: Continuum.
Your browser does not meet the minimum requirements to view this website. The browsers listed below are compatible. If you do not have any of these browsers, click on the icon to download the desired browser.
