At present my research focuses on processes of the imagination, isolation + its collective opposite, play, and emerging technologies. This year I’m finishing a phd @ Melbourne Uni writing about the care and protection of virtual self-made worlds, and the critical consequences of the privatised and lonely inhabitation of those spaces.

Before that, I have been interested in the changing conditions of online listening. I wrote a book called Hearing the Cloud (Zero Books). I wrote about streaming services, accelerationism, stochastic composition, and the politics of mood curation. Around this time I also started a publisher of old and new sci-fi called Formling.

Benjamin Noys wrote the following review of Hearing the Cloud:

"Hearing the Cloud guides us through the soundscapes of contemporary neoliberal capitalism, from chillstep to nightcore, and recaptures the possibilities of collective listening embedded within these musical forms. Emile Frankel traces a pattern recognition of our moment, poised between dystopian nihilism and the receding possibilities of utopia. Against irony, fragmentation, and chaos, Hearing the Cloud helps us hear the material presence of sound in our lives and the whispers of a better future."

Earlier still, I received a Master of Music from The Royal Conservatorium of the Netherlands and worked with a range of ensembles making virtual environments to play and perform within. Attached to the top school-wide award for my graduating project, my degree was amended with the the following:

“The committee wants to express the value of their appreciation of Emile’s works by a special mention: Special mention for the development of a highly personal art form in which text, image and music composition are equally important and express the disturbance and artistic issues connected to a world in transition.”

I’ve worked as an essayist for The Quietus, Liquid Architecture, Disclaimer, and The Barbican + Stray Landings. I’ve also lectured across Europe at CTM Festival Berlin, Unsound Festival, Krakow + Adelaide, and Norberg Festival, Sweden.


https://www.aqnb.com/2018/11/28/alone-togetherness-in-the-localised-global-underground-of-krakows-unsound-festival-its-negotiations-on-the-value-of-presence/

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