Practice-as-research is a mixed mode approach to PhD study, and this complementary writing discusses the conceptual and critical topics engaged with during the practical realisation of an Electroacoustic composition portfolio. The general research aim was to explore and develop personal Electroacoustic compositional technique, with the specific objective of exploring approaches to the creation of sound materials and structures that might suggest to the listener Energy, Movement and Direction within the context of Acousmatic Composition. To aid the critical contextuaIisation of the study, the documentation begins with a literature review, which gives a broad overview of current theoretical knowledge on the topic. The second chapter is concerned with the selected methodologies of the study, and whilst including some detail of the compositional processes, it also attempts critically to contextualise these with further discussion of pertinent theoretical issues. The final chapter presents an analysis of two Acousmatic pieces, one of which, What Lie Within, is from the accompanying portfolio, the other is Natasha Barrett's ... fetters ... (2005). The third chapter analysis includes the use of Spectrograms and proposes an expansion of Cogan's Theory of Oppositions, and in doing so, attempts to make constructive comparisons on how the musical structures of each piece change over time. This study found that the portfolio title, specifically, Energy, Movement and Direction, could be explored not just as framework for development of indexical sound signs, but could also serve the compositional process as a structural and conceptual catalyst. The study also found that engagement with critical thinking such as that found in the semiological frameworks of Peirce. Saussure and Derrida assisted the compositional process. Using Peirce's tripartite of signification to explain how sound might act as a sign in the cognition of the listener was useful in fonningstrategic approaches to the development of the compositions. The analysis of musical structure over time by applying a development of Cogan's Theory of Oppositions ( 1984) to the aural and abstracted graphical traces of two Acousmatic compositions proved useful in that it helped inform the development of subsequent compositions within the portfolio