School of Simulation & Visualisation Sound for the Moving Image

Natasha Briggs (She/Her)

Natasha Briggs is a sound practitioner with an interest in audio-visual storytelling. She is from Fife, where she studied Sound Production and has a BSc with distinction in sound design. She has explored new options and creativity involving the arts while studying at the Glasgow School of Art. Influencing documentary-making and installations while creating experimental soundscapes and ambient compositions. Throughout her projects, her current themes focus on juxtaposing old and new, organic and synthetic sounds and mental health problems with nature. Natasha recently finished her dissertation on creating a multi-sensory installation to enhance mental well-being while disengaging from external situations.

 

Within her projects, she focuses on critical issues around mental health, nature and the use of archival footage for historical storytelling, along with voiceovers.

In her 4th year of study, she focused on insomnia in the hospitality industry, a sound-alone soundscape mixed in 5.1 surround sound. The multi-sensory installation creates a relaxing sensation and encourages a meditative state. Natasha has been involved in external projects with the BBC 100 – Archives for Education: Make film history. It involved using archived material to recreate a short film focused on different themes, In which she picked Mental Health and Neurodiversity. The short film focused on a soldier who had returned home from WW2 with war neurosis in an asylum. The project was screened at Glasgow CCA in November 2022 and is available online for a limited time. https://www.archivesforeducation.com/bbc100 (Follow the link to the website, select Glasgow workshops and the last video, “Shock to Ruin”, for the BBC 100 project)

 

While studying Sound for the Moving Image, Natasha gained new skills and expanded her knowledge. Understanding the importance of immersive audio using Ambisonics, Binaural audio, and 5.1 Surround sound has encouraged her motivation for future projects to create an immersive experience. She has used Adobe Premier Pro to edit all her videos. She creates her sounds and compositions using Ableton Live while being competent in Pro-tools for her post-production projects and recently learning Reaper to implement Ambisonics. Natasha has a wide range of multi-media work which displays her skillset, such as sound design for games and film, composition, documentary making, installation sound, sound alone projects, location recording, working with archival footage and essential camera work.

 

 

 

 

 

Contact
NatashaBriggs.Audio@gmail.com
N.Briggs1@student.gsa.ac.uk
Portfolio Website
Projects
2020 Visions
John Lemons Haunted Jaunt
Ambient Focus

Mixing in 5.1

2020 Visions

This project was inspired by Natasha’s journey through 2020, lockdowns and COVID-19. It is a sound-alone piece which invites the listener into Natasha’s experience and how she interpreted the pandemic through sound. With an influence from art movements such as Surrealism and Dada and the work of David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks”. She has used samples from those crucial statements made by the government to split up the timeline through the first half of 2020. It focuses on hospitality, as that was Natasha’s job role then.

John Lemons Haunted Jaunt

‘John Lemons Haunted Jaunt’ is an interactive game using the Unity game engine. Natasha made the game through Unity tutorials while coding the animation and designing the sound for the whole game.

She also changed the game’s overall look to create a haunted atmosphere further to enhance the character’s emotions toward the player. The user has to escape the haunted house without getting caught by the ghosts and gargoyles. Natasha created sound motifs to represent those characters to create tension and for the player to recognise danger is near. Her sound creation method used her sound effects, synthesisers and voice.

John Lemons Haunted Jaunt interactive game

Ambient Focus

For Natasha’s dissertation research project, she created a multi-sensory installation that invited participants to experience a first-order Ambisonic 3D ambient soundscape with a projected visual element. The project aimed to create a relaxing meditative state of consciousness and focus on the participants’ mental well-being while incorporating methods used by sound practitioners such as Pauline Oliveros, John Cage and Brian Eno. She also included influence from visual practitioners such as James Turrell, Olafur Eliasson, and Brion Gysin. The use of a circle is influenced by Turrell and Eliasson in their installation works, with the colour gradients representing sunrise and sunsets.

Natasha had visited the “Dreamachine” installation in Edinburgh, which encouraged her research for the overall dissertation. Upon experiencing a subliminal effect from that installation, She thought out an installation using different methods to create a similar reaction to those participating.

To experience the immersive audio, Natasha encourages the use of headphones while listening.