Journal of Sonic Studies
![Journal of Sonic Studies](https://media.researchcatalogue.net/rc/cache/ca/86/69/e5/ca8669e5099e5110b2b2a5b2cc86d28e.png?t=1a019431bc622295f1a22e3d0ab1c29d&e=1722219600)
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 ![](/rc/images/email.gif)
,
Vincent Meelberg ![](/rc/images/email.gif)
url:
http://sonicstudies.org/about
Recent Activities
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At Home in Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles Festival Neighborhood
(2021)
author(s): Edda Bild, Daniel Steele, and Catherine Guastavino
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
Urban festivals have traditionally been considered incompatible with residential areas because of their contrasting sonic characters, where the sounds of festivals are treated as a nuisance for residents. However, the neighborhood dedicated to housing festivals in downtown Montreal is also the home of diverse groups of residents and workers. Based on a diary and interview study with residents of the Quartier des spectacles festival neighborhood, and building upon research on touristification, festivals as third places, and soundscape, we explored what it meant to be at home in a festival neighborhood, focusing on the sonic experiences of locals. Findings provided a more nuanced portrayal of everyday life in a dense, lively urban environment transformed through touristification. Residents do not consider the sounds of festivals as a primary source of annoyance; on the contrary, these sounds inspire them to engage with their neighborhood, suggesting a more porous living experience between indoor and outdoor spaces. Drawing on the characterization of other imagined residents by our participants, we conclude by introducing the idea of soundscape personas as a practical method in participatory decision-making for the future of the neighborhood.
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ANTIVIRUS !Make some domestic noise! on ∏ Node Part I
(2021)
author(s): Sarah Brown and Valentina Vuksic, Valentina Vuksic
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
Stream your domestic appliances on p-node.org: fridge, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, coffee machine, etc. You can also use gardening tools.
I’ll mix them and re-stream the mix on ANTIVIRUS.
(As you know, we can easily mix different streams on the p-node website by changing the volume levels and streaming the mix at the end.)
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Editorial - Sound at Home 1: Territory, Materiality and the Extension of Home
(2021)
author(s): Mette Simonsen Abildgaard
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
For this special issue of the Journal of Sonic Studies, we invited authors to consider sound at home from a range of perspectives: sound at home as the hum of appliances, the babble of water pipes, the chatter of media, and the creaking of a wooden floor; sounds that seep in from other homes and from the world outside – traffic, music, shouting, disconcerting sounds that stand out, and sounds that go unheard in their familiarity.
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Sounds of Another Home: Telepresence, COVID-19 and a Bioscience Laboratory in Transition
(2021)
author(s): Rebecca Carlson
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
Based on an ethnography of a bioscience laboratory in Tokyo before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper focuses on telepresence, and the growing demand for workers to maintain extended simultaneous presence in multiple electronic, or electronically augmented, spaces. In contrast to views promoting the liberating affordances of telework in the maintenance of healthy work-life balance (reduced commute time; increased “presence” in family life), an analysis of sound reveals the way the home becomes reorganized, and ultimately de-prioritized, under work demands. In particular, online meetings, which privilege discrete information exchange, position the home as a barrier to productive communications. Receding the soundscape of the home in this way reflects a normalization of the neoliberal imperative to find self-realization in workplace forms of sociality.
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Acoustic Territories of the Body: Headphone Listening, Embodied Space, and the Phenomenology of Sonic Homeliness
(2021)
author(s): Jacob Kingsbury Downs
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
Can we describe certain sonic experiences as “homely,” even when they take place outside of a traditional home-space? While phenomenological accounts of home abound, with writers detailing a rich spectrum of the felt characteristics of the homely including safety, familiarity, and affective “warmth,” there is a scarcity of research into sonic experience that engages with such literatures. With specific interest in the experience of embodied space, I account here for what might be termed feelings of “sonic homeliness” as they emerge during headphone listening. After forming a conceptual model of homeliness that draws from phenomenological philosophy, I investigate its applicability to experiences of headphone listening. Through analysis of primary interview data, I consider how headphones may be said to territorialize space for listeners, analyzing how sonic “boundaries” are experienced in relation to the body, as well as how some listeners describe their experiences as interiorized, comforting, and “wombic.”
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ANTIVIRUS !Make some domestic noise! on ∏ Node Part II
(2021)
author(s): Sarah Brown and Valentina Vuksic, Valentina Vuksic
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
!Make Some Domestic Noise! was a series of collective online performances that took place during the first COVID-19 lockdown. They featured what might be described as an online domestic noise big band. As everyone was isolated at home, the ∏ Node collective launched the Antivirus program to train people on how to join and contribute their own stream and sounds.
Being alone at home can be stressful, but it can also reveal the beauty of everyday noises.
On a weekly basis, people were invited by email to participate by playing with the noises of their domestic appliances and live stream the results. These separate audio streams were then mixed in real time and sent to the main output stream. This was enabled by the ∏ Node site structure, which provides a volume control for every active stream. The website also has an Internet Relay Chat through which participants can, and did, directly interact.