Journal of Sonic Studies
About this portal
The portal is used to publish contributions for the online OA Journal of Sonic Studies, the storage of A/V materials, and the storage of previous issues.
contact person(s):
Marcel Cobussen ,
Vincent Meelberg url:
http://sonicstudies.org/about
Recent Activities
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AUDITORY SITUATIONS: NOTES FROM NOWHERE
(2018)
author(s): Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
As an increasingly migratory being, a wandering listener interacts with various places he/she traverses in fleeting and transitory ways, considering them as spatio-temporally evolving but gradually disorienting auditory situations. Instead of locating the source identities of sounds, the listener may relate to these situations through thought processes generated by means of a subjective perception of the various sonic phenomena occurring at these places. This essay describes an on-going project, “Doors of Nothingness,” that frames and textualizes streams of thought triggered by presence in certain immersive but evanescent auditory situations. Essentially personal and contemplative in nature, the project refers to the pervasive interaction that takes place between the constantly migrating man and his contextual sonic environment beyond sound’s immediately accessible meaning. In the context of describing the project and its methodology, this essay intends to develop a discourse on sound’s problematic relationship to locating its source, arguing that situational sonic phenomena activate thought processes that transcend mere epistemic comprehension of the source identity and involve subjectivity, contemplation, poetics, and the mood of the nomadic listener.
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ON SOUNDSCAPES, PHONOGRAPHY, AND ENVIRONMENTAL SOUND ART
(2018)
author(s): Marinos Koutsomichalis
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
This paper proposes a pragmatic response to the broad philosophical question of what constitutes a soundscape and in what ways it might resonate through consciousness and perception. It also discusses phonography, criticizes its incapability to capture the essence of environmental sound, and explains how a series of artistic practices emerged and established themselves within the non-linearities of the recording-reproduction paradigm. Further, it elaborates on how sound art inaugurates new ways of perceiving, thinking about and representing soundscapes, accordingly. In this respect, several examples are discussed, including a selection of works by the author.
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WINDOW - AN UNDECIDED SOUND ESSAY
(2018)
author(s): Katharine Norman
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
Window is an experiment in writing about sound, listening and environment, in a manner that deliberately subverts any sense of direction, focus or conclusion. But it is also a work of art—both scholarly and “playful”, born of indecision and from having no desire to go anywhere special. There was no preordained subject of study. Instead, the subject of study revealed itself during the making of the piece as being ordinary experience - an activity embedded in individuals rather than things - gradually explored through deliberate indirection. These notes are written to offer some extra insights into how, and why, I made this piece.
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FROM EPISTEMOLOGY TO CREATIVITY: A PERSONAL VIEW
(2018)
author(s): Barry Truax
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
An epistemological model of sound is proposed involving information derived from the inner structure of sound as interpreted by the listener’s contextual knowledge. In the author’s soundscape compositions, the sound material is elaborated using contemporary digital signal processing techniques, while maintaining listener recognizability, and the structure of the work and its narrative are guided by the composer’s contextual knowledge of the real world.
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EDITORIAL: TOWARDS NEW SONIC EPISTEMOLOGIES
(2018)
author(s): Marcel Cobussen
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
Brian De Palma’s famous 1981 thriller film Blow Out starts with a movie sound effects technician, Jack, who, while recording sounds for a low-budget slasher film in a wooded area near a river, serendipitously captures audio evidence of an assassination involving a presidential candidate. The candidate is sitting in a car that gets a blowout; the car slips into the water, and the candidate drowns. However, listening to the audiotape he inadvertently recorded of the accident, Jack distinctly hears a gunshot just before the blowout. What appears to be an accident caused by a flat tire turns out to be an attempted murder.
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The Envoicing of Protest: Occupying Television News through Sound and Music
(2018)
author(s): James Deaville
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
The television coverage of the 2011 Occupy Wall Street Movement discloses a tension between the attention-getting sounds of protesters and the networks’ often dismissive reporting of the sights and sounds of their protests. While the conflict over control of representation has characterized the historical reporting of protest, the Occupy movement presented the networks with particular problems in coverage, since the encampments and associated activities did not afford easy or sensational sound bites. The diversity of the Occupy soundscape, which drew upon typical protest auralities but in new configurations, contributed to the trivializing of the movement as projected in the living rooms of Americans. To situate this phenomenon, the essay examines the prior history of televisual news reporting of the sounds of collective protest, from the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam War protests to protest actions related to the Gulf War/War on Terror, the Tea Party and the Arab Spring.