The Domestication of Sound

Holger Schulze:
The Domestication of Sound.
On the Generativity of Repetition

Conference
Repetition Recurrence Returns

Repetition 2

Location

Stanford Humanities Center
Levinthal Hall
450 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
U.S.A.

Time

11.10am

Programme

Repetition Recurrence Returns

Abstract

This talk scrutinizes aspects of repetition in the context of sound studies: on occasion of examples from sound design, sound art and aural architecture. Repetition is crucial in sound: The sonic corpus of a listener or performer responds and embodies specific material qualities of sonic environments that constitute a so-called sonario (Gampe 2014), an aural architecture (Blesser/Salter 2007). How is one listener as part of a group of listeners capable at all of joining a situation of ubiquitous listening (Kassabian 2016)? How are the sonic traces (Schulze 2016) left by sound events characterized by genuine forms of texture and timbre, of cohesion (Schulze 2000)? How do these forms of sensory and corporeal response provide an alternative to analysis Michel Serres proposed as a so-called syrrhesis (Serres 1985)? This talk provides a dense and provocative introduction into the issues and concepts currently at stake in sound studies. It provides also a glimpse into the anthropology of sound The Sonic Persona (forthcoming 2017, Bloomsbury Publishing).