Suting Han*

Royal Northern College of Music

Abstract：

Over the past few years, my compositional practice has gradually expanded from writing acoustic works to creating intermedia performances in which sound, image, movement, and spatial design are interdependent. This development aligns with a broader tendency in contemporary composition to conceive music as a multisensory experience rather than a purely sonic one. Jennifer Walshe’s idea of “The New Discipline” captures this shift: The composer becomes a designer of perception, responsible for shaping the conditions of performance and collaboration. However, when I began developing large-scale audiovisual projects, I found that existing notational systems whether traditional or graphic were not sufficient to sustain such complexity. They could not provide a structural strategy for large-scale intermedia works, often failing to maintain coherence while allowing the flexibility needed for collaborative interpretation. This gap led me to develop what I call “storyboard notation”: A framework that rethinks how notation can function as both a conceptual and performative system for organising perception. Borrowed from cinematic pre-visualisation, the storyboard became, in my practice, more than a planning device, it evolved into a compositional method that structures relationships between music, visuals, and embodied performance. Rather than managing production, storyboard notation operates as a system for coordinating sensory engagement and performer collaboration across time and space.

Key Words：

audiovisual composition; storyboard theory; intermedia; notation; the new discipline; embodied performance