Tracing efforts to control unwanted sound--the noise of industry, city traffic, gramophones and radios, and aircraft--from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century.

_Humanesis_ critically examines central strains of posthumanism, searching out biases in the ways that human–technology coupling is explained. Specifically, it interrogates three approaches taken by posthumanist discourse: scientific, humanist, and organismic. David Cecchetto’s investigations reveal how each perspective continues to hold on to elements of the humanist tradition that it is ostensibly mobilized against. His study frontally desublimates the previously unseen presumptions that underlie each of the three thought lines and offers incisive appraisals of the work of three prominent thinkers: (...) Ollivier Dyens, Katherine Hayles, and Mark Hansen. To materially ground the problematic of posthumanism, _Humanesis_ interweaves its theoretical chapters with discussions of artworks. These highlight the topos of sound, demonstrating how aurality might produce new insights in a field that has been dominated by visualization. Cecchetto, a media artist, scrutinizes his own collaborative artistic practice in which he elucidates the variegated causal chains that compose human–technological coupling. _Humanesis_ advances the posthumanist conversation in several important ways. It proposes the term “technological posthumanism” to focus on the discourse as it relates to technology without neglecting its other disciplinary histories. It suggests that deconstruction remains relevant to the enterprise, especially with respect to the performative dimension of language. It analyzes artworks not yet considered in the light of posthumanism, with a particular emphasis on the role of aurality. And the form of the text introduces a reflexive component that exemplifies how the dialogue of posthumanism might progress without resorting to the types of unilateral narratives that the book critiques. (shrink)

The biosemiotic complexity of acoustic communities in the primary forests of Ulu Temburong and Yasunì was investigated with continuous 24-h recordings, using the acoustic signature and multiscale approach of ecoacoustic events and their emergent fractal dimensions. The 3D recordings used for the analysis were collected in undisturbed primary equatorial forests under the scope of the project, Fragments of Extinction, which produces 3D sound portraits with the highest definition possible using current technologies – a perfect dataset on which to (...) perform a multiscale qualitative analysis. The ecoacoustic events detected by a combination of the Acoustic Complexity Indices, ACIft, ACIft evenness, and ACItf evenness, and its fractal dimension were developed according to a biosemiotics approach in which the ecofield theory states that EE functions like a species-specific carrier of meaning. EEs, extracted according to 10 levels of temporal resolution, from 1 to 360 s, confirm the hypothesis that these acoustic communities have an internal complexity that responds to a fractal structure. Yasunì was richer in EEs, with a higher coefficient of variation of hourly fractal dimension. This methodology opens up promising new perspectives in the acoustic assessment of habitat quality and monitoring landscape modification. It also confirms the great potential of the biosemiotics approach in converting acoustic frequencies into ecoacoustic events through encoding procedures that mimic potential species-specific interpretations of the sonic environment. (shrink)

In this paper I put in dialogue two areas of scholarship: Technology Studies and Sound Studies. Within Technology Studies I discuss the influential social construction of technology approach and illustrate it with the history of the moog electronic music synthesizer, the first commercial music synthesizer. I stress the role of standardization of keyboards and the key role played by users in the development of this technology. I examine certain iconic sounds that the moog synthesizer produces and discuss the stabilization (...) of sound. It is argued that just as technologies can be traced as stabilizing over time, sounds also can be traced with certain sounds stabilizing and being taken up by users whilst other sounds fail to stabilize. The technology required to produce a sound, performance practice, and wider cultural concerns such as the naming of sounds are crucial ingredients in the stabilization of sound. (shrink)

This article analyses the connections between forms of solitary automobile habitation and the use of mobile sound technologies in automobiles: the radio, cassette, sound system and mobile phone. It does this through an empirically informed analysis of automobile use. In doing so it re-evaluates our understanding of the occupation of space and place, arguing that traditional concepts of urban space have underestimated the active role that the users of these communication technologies might have in transforming the (...) meaning of these spaces as they pass through them. The article points to the powerful, and potentially problematic, role that sound technologies play in the daily experience of moving through the city. (shrink)

Works in science and technology studies have repeatedly pointed to the importance of the visual in scientific practice. STS has also explicated how embodied practice generates scientific knowledge. I aim to supplement this literature by pointing out how sound and hearing are integral aspects of experimentation. Sound helps define how and when lab work is done, and in what kinds of spaces. It structures experimental experience. It affords interactions between researchers and instruments that are richer than could be (...) obtained with vision alone. And it is a site for tacit knowledge, providing a resource for the replication of results, and the transmission of knowledge, and the construction of social boundaries within instrumental communities. (shrink)

What can the sounds of today tell us about the future? Can an analysis of sound and sonic practices allow us to make reliable predictions in relation to wider social phenomena? And what might they tell us about technology in a world where futurology is such a frenzied and busy field? In order to answer these questions, this book tests a range of propositions that connect noise, sound and music to political, economic and technological events. Hence it is (...) a book about historical trajectories and conflicting ideas about time and the necessity to re-contextualize and interpret them in the digital age. (shrink)

Environmental Sound Artists: In Their Own Words is an incisive and imaginative look at the international environmental sound art movement, which emerged in the late 1960s. The term environmental sound art is generally applied to the work of sound artists who incorporate processes in which the artist actively engages with the environment. While the field of environmental sound art is diverse and includes a variety of approaches, the art form diverges from traditional contemporary music by (...) the conscious and strategic integration of environmental impulses and natural processes. This book presents a current perspective on the environmental sound art movement through a collection of personal writings by important environmental sound artists. Dismayed by the limitations and gradual breakdown of contemporary compositional strategies, environmental sound artists have sought alternate venues, genres, technologies, and delivery methods for their creative expression. Environmental sound art is especially relevant because it addresses political, social, economic, scientific, and aesthetic issues. As a result, it has attracted the participation of artists internationally. Awareness and concern for the environment has connected and unified artists across the globe and has achieved a solidarity and clarity of purpose that is singularly unique and optimistic. The environmental sound art movement is borderless and thriving. (shrink)

Live coding is an embodied, sensorial and live technological–human relationship that is recursively iterated through sonic and visual outputs based on what we argue are kinship relations between and through bodies and technology. At the same time, and in a familiar moment of déjà vu for feminist scholars, live coding is most often discussed not in relation to the lived and sensory human–technology kinship, but in terms of fetishised code or software, output and agency. As feminist scholars have long argued, (...) emphasising and fetishising code or software, and celebrating output and agency are normatively masculine, white and Western conceptions of technology that feed into the growing valorisation of accelerationist logic whilst also negating embodied, not to mention other (non-white, Western, masculine) bodies, expertise or histories per se. In this article, we want to redress this by drawing on our empirical material on live coding to focus on human–technology kinship and, in so doing, think about failure, slowness and embodiment and about human–technology relations that are more akin to what Alison Kafer (drawing on the work of Donna Haraway) has termed ‘becoming with’ or ‘making kin’. This, we argue, has the potential to shift the focus from the potentialities of technologies on or through the body, towards the generative capacities of mediation (including failure), which are caught up in lived experiences. The question is not only about how the relations of bodies and technologies are played out in certain circumstances but about what might be played out if we reconceptualise these relations in these terms. (shrink)

Sounding Fragilities enacts a polyphony of writing on contemporary composition, music and performing arts in relation to music theatre. Co-edited by a theatre and performance scholar and by a composer and artistic researcher, this anthology considers its field of investigation through the lens of positionalities. Irene Lehmann and Pia Palme invite readers into intimate encounters with an artist's practice, feminist and queer perspectives, and personal explorations into aspects of musicology, theatre studies, technology and ecology. By presenting female* composers who write (...) with/through/about their own practice, Sounding Fragilities is a remarkable contribution to an interdisciplinary debate around the agency of artistic research. With this synthesis, the editors evaluate how moving beyond the binary of art and science reveals the rich yet fragile territories of artistic knowledge-production and literacy in music theatre. Sounding Fragilities: An Anthology brings together essays, discussions and interventions on contemporary music, dance and music theatre to offer a polyphony of new approaches to listening, watching, composing and performing. Artistic and academic researchers present reflections and insights into the fragilities of artistic materials, collaborations and the communities that build around live performances. Challenging the idea of isolated composers, choreographers, audience members and academic researchers, they stress instead the interconnectedness of these positions as indispensable elements of thriving performance and research. This feature of all live performance is envisaged by several of the book's contributors as linked to political, democratic thought and ecological or feminist thinking. (shrink)

Since it may seem strange for a new series to begin with volume 3, a word of explanation is in order. The series, Philosophy and Technology, inaugurated in this form with this volume, is the official publication of the Society for Philosophy & Technology. Approximately one volume each year is tobe published, alternating between proceedings volumes - taken from contributions to biennial international conferences of the Society - and miscellaneous volumes, with roughly the character of a professional society journal. The (...) forerunners of the series in its present form were two proceedings volumes: Philosophy and Technology (1983), edited by Paul T. Durbin and Friedrich Rapp, and Philosophy and Technology //: Information Technology and Computers in Theory and Practice (1986), edited by Carl Mitcham and Alois Huning - both published (as volumes 80 and 90, respectively) in the series, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. The Society for Philosophy & Technology, now more than ten years old, is devoted to the promotion of philosophical schalarship that deals in one way or another with technology and technological society. "Philosophical scholarship" is interpreted broadly as including contribu tions from any and all perspectives; the one requirement is that the schalarship be sound, and all contributions to the series are subject to rigorous blind refereeing. "Technology," the other half of the philos ophy-and-technology pairing, is also construed broadly. (shrink)

A widespread view among philosophers and scientists is that recorded sounds and assisted hearing differ fundamentally from natural sounds and direct hearing. It is commonly claimed, for example, that the sounds we hear over the phone are not sounds emitted by the voice of our interlocutor, but the sounds reproduced by the phone’s loudspeaker. According to this view, hearing distant sounds through communication and audio equipment is at best indirect and at worst illusory. In what follows, I shall reject these (...) claims and argue in favor of a transparent view of auditory media, including radio, telephone, phonograph, etc. According to this approach, the great gift of Scott de Martinville and Edison is not to have invented devices able to reproduce vanished sounds but rather to have created technological instruments literally able to store and transmit them to future and distant listeners. (shrink)

Digitalization, virtualization, commercialization, loss of integrity, polystylistics, liberation from any norms are the latest trends that determine the development of contemporary art. They influence the functioning of modern communication models that evolve in accordance with the achievements of technology and acquire mobility, variability and interactivity. Interaction between social processes and scientific and technological achievements is increasing, the essence of communication in the space of modern culture is being rethought, particularly, the boundary between the types of art is being levelled. The (...) latter phenomenon leads to the emergence of new instruments and methods of artistic creativity and expands the possibilities of artistic self-expression. One of the promising areas of artistic exploration is the creation of sound interactive installations. This paper proposes a classification of communication models that are based on the analysis of interactive sound installations. The classification is based on determining the degree to which audiences actions influence the final sound result of the creative action. The paper claims that the parameters of the exhibition space are important components of the installation’s structure and form. A dialogue with nature by way of incorporating sounds of nature, their imitations, and interpretations in art objects is found to be a current trend in interactive sound installations. (shrink)

New and complex technologies are exceedingly present and in widespread use in contemporary cities globally. The urban lifeworld is saturated with various applications of information and computing technologies, but also more rudimentary forms of technology construct and create the urban everyday life as we know it. Many forms of urban technologies are perceived first through their everyday aesthetic qualities: how they look, feel, sound, or are otherwise encountered within the streetscape. Philosophical aesthetics, however, has tended to (...) overlook everyday technologies as a topic, often due to unquestioned ideas of how a city should ideally look and feel. Thus, a more realistic approach to contemporary cities is needed, in which the deep-seated role of technologies is recognized and the experiences related to their entangled uses become acknowledged. This paper brings together recent developments in urban aesthetics with some of the core ideas of postphenomenological approaches to new urban technologies. (shrink)

Bioacoustics is an interdisciplinary field bridging biological and acoustic sciences, which uses sound technologies to record, preserve, and analyse large datasets of animal communications. But it is also a world, made of the meanings created through inter- and intra-species communication. This article empirically explores a variety of bioacoustics research, including interviews with researchers, as part of a broader qualitative study, in order to theorize the expanding sense and sensation of a global biosphere and sonic data. By giving a (...) sustained and detailed account of the science of bioacoustics, particularly how its modes of measurement allow for a new way of understanding what is involved in the de-centred modes of hearing that re-centre acts of listening and, by extension, the nature of the relation between researcher and researched, the article contributes to methodological discussions regarding the longstanding questions of how researchers and scientists are implicated in the knowledge and objects they collectively produce. (shrink)

The production of good sound generation in the violin is a complex task that requires coordination and spatiotemporal control of bowing gestures. The use of motion-capture technologies to improve performance or reduce injury risks in the area of kinesiology is becoming widespread. The combination of motion accuracy and sound quality feedback has the potential of becoming an important aid in violin learning. In this study, we evaluate motion-capture and sound-quality analysis technologies developed inside the context (...) of the TELMI, a technology-enhanced music learning project. We analyzed the sound and bow motion of 50 participants with no prior violin experience while learning to produce a stable sound in the violin. Participants were divided into two groups: the experimental group received real-time visual feedback both on kinematics and sound quality, while participants in the control group practiced without any type of external help. An additional third group of violin experts performed the same task for comparative purposes. After the practice session, all groups were evaluated in a transfer phase without feedback. At the practice phase, the experimental group improved their bowing kinematics in comparison to the control group, but this was at the expense of impairing the sound quality of their performance. At the retention phase, the experimental group showed better results in sound quality, especially concerning control of sound dynamics. Besides, we found that the expert group improved the stability of their sound while using the technology. All in all, these results emphasize the importance of feedback technologies in learning complex tasks, such as musical instrument learning. (shrink)

This book transforms phenomenology, music, technology, and the cultural arts from within. Gathering contributions by performing artists, media technology designers, nomadic composers, and distinguished musicological scholars, it explores a rich array of concepts such as embodiment, art and technology, mindfulness meditation, time and space in music, self and emptiness, as well as cultural heritage preservation. It does so via close studies on music phenomenology theory, works involving experimental music and technology, and related cultural and historical issues. This book will be (...) of considerable interest to readers from the fields of sound studies, science and technology studies, phenomenology, cultural studies, media studies, and sound art theory. This book is equally relevant and insightful for musicians, composers, media artists, sound artists, technology designers, and curators and arts administrators from the performing and visual arts. (shrink)

The Routledge Companion to Sounding Art presents an overview of the issues, methods, and approaches crucial for the study of sound in artistic practice. Thirty-six essays cover a variety of interdisciplinary approaches to studying sounding art from the fields of musicology, cultural studies, sound design, auditory culture, art history, and philosophy. The companion website hosts sound examples and links to further resources. The collection is organized around six main themes: Sounding Art: The notion of sounding art, its (...) relation to sound studies, and its evolution and possibilities. Acoustic Knowledge and Communication: How we approach, study, and analyze sound and the challenges of writing about sound. Listening and Memory: Listening from different perspectives, from the psychology of listening to embodied and technologically mediated listening. Acoustic Spaces, Identities and Communities: How humans arrange their sonic environments, how this relates to sonic identity, how music contributes to our environment, and the ethical and political implications of sound. Sonic Histories: How studying sounding art can contribute methodologically and epistemologically to historiography. Sound Technologies and Media: The impact of sonic technologies on contemporary culture, electroacoustic innovation, and how the way we make and access music has changed. With contributions from leading scholars and cutting-edge researchers, The Routledge Companion to Sounding Art is an essential resource for anyone studying the intersection of sound and art. (shrink)

It is well known that the Ministry of State Security in the former German Democratic Republic was deeply involved in wiretapping and eavesdropping on both foreigners and its citizens. It is less widely known that, against this background, the Stasi developed a keen interest in technologies and techniques of speaker identification, such as the visualization of recorded sound and aural analysis. How exactly did Stasi employees analyze the sound of voices? How did listening become a legitimate way (...) of knowing in this context? And why did speaker identification not become as powerful as the Stasi had hoped? Empirically, this essay draws on documents from the Stasi’s former archives. Theoretically, it builds on “sonic skills” in the sciences to clarify the identification practices and distinguishes between the “logic of forensics” and the “logic of surveillance” to understand why the Stasi ran ashore in its sound analysis endeavor. Finally, it aims to contribute to understanding the information paradox in the Stasi historiography and its implications for the history of science. (shrink)

Birds produce different types of sounds in different contexts such as begging for food in youngsters, alerting to a danger, defending a territory or attracting a sexual partner. About half of the bird species are able to transform their vocalizations through imitation, improvisation or invention of sounds. Here we review the different experimental procedures that have been used to study the learning capacities of birds in the vocal domain and in the auditory domain, with a particular emphasis on recent technological (...) developments. Nowadays, it is possible to record individual vocalizations of birds living in social groups or to record continuously the vocal ontogeny of birdsong. In conditioning experiments, new paradigms have successfully replaced food rewards with a socio-sexual reward. It is possible to engage in vocal interactions with a bird using dedicated computer systems. In both the laboratory and more recently in the field, different techniques have been used to train young oscine songbirds to learn from acoustic models. The use of virtual social environments and robots as social agents are also promising avenues. All together, these new techniques will permit researchers to explore more deeply the umwelt of bird species. (shrink)

Multimedia technologies and ICT in organising e-portfolio for students An electronic portfolio, also known as an e-portfolio or digital portfolio, is a collection of electronic evidence assembled and managed by a user, usually on the Web. Such electronic evidence may include inputted text, electronic files such as Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF files, images, multimedia, Blog entries, and hyperlinks.One of the approaches, which can be used for improving the attractiveness of the e-portfolio is presented, and it is an implementation (...) of the multimedia technologies in it. In this case we are speaking about multimedia electronic portfolio. What makes them very different from the traditional portfolios is that they can include scanned or digital photos, video and sound clips, animations, recordings of the students, text, traditional writings and drawings.Two main groups of tools for creating multimedia e-portfolio are presented. (shrink)

This article offers a discussion of the connection between technology and values and, specifically, I take a closer look at ethically sound design. In order to bring the discussion into a concrete context, the theory of Value Sensitive Design (VSD) will be the focus point. To illustrate my argument concerning design ethics, the discussion involves a case study of an augmented window, designed by the VSD Research Lab, which has turned out to be a potentially surveillance-enabling technology. I call (...) attention to a “positivist problem” that has to do with the connection between the design context and the use context, which VSD seems to presuppose, and I argue that it is necessary to clearly distinguish between the two, since the designers’ intentions do not always correspond with the users’ practice; in fact, the relation between design and use is very complex and principally unpredictable. Thus, a design theory must accept that foresight is limited to anticipation rather than prediction. To overcome the positivist problem, I suggest a phenomenological approach to technology inspired by Don Ihde’s concept of multistability. This argument, which is general in nature and thus applies to any theory of design ethics, is intended as a constructive criticism, which can hopefully contribute to the further development of design ethics. (shrink)

This essay urges us to complement work on the philosophy and social science of race that has focused on the “visual” and “epistemic” dimension of racism with work on affect or what is here called the somatological dimensions of racism. The racist self hears race before he sees it. The racist self is convulsed by race before she experiences it as an epistemic affair. It is argued here that we dwell in the sound house of race. Before racism is (...) chromocratic, it is phonocratic. The technologies of the racist self are the technologies of racializing aurality and phonology. Racism brands us sonically. Race, it will be argued, is a sonic stigmata. More specifically, the focus will be on voice, accent, what here is called the prosody of race. The aim is make those racialized and racializing accents in philosophy resound, echo, and reverberate so that we can hear the prosody of race. The racist does not dwell in the silent chamber of the mind’s “I.” The viscera of racism dwells in the body our racist habits have domesticated. (shrink)

Immersive virtual reality (VR) emerges as a promising research and clinical tool. However, several studies suggest that VR induced adverse symptoms and effects (VRISE) may undermine the health and safety standards, and the reliability of the scientific results. In the current literature review, the technical reasons for the adverse symptomatology are investigated to provide suggestions and technological knowledge for the implementation of VR head-mounted display (HMD) systems in cognitive neuroscience. The technological systematic literature indicated features pertinent to display, sound, (...) motion tracking, navigation, ergonomic interactions, user experience, and computer’s hardware that should be considered by the researchers. Subsequently, a meta-analysis of 44 neuroscientific or neuropsychological studies involving VR HMD systems was performed. The meta-analysis of the VR studies demonstrated that the new generation HMDs induced significantly fewer dropouts and VRISE. Importantly, the commercial versions of the new generation HMDs with ergonomic interactions had zero incidents of adverse symptomatology and dropouts. Solely, HMDs equivalent to or greater than the commercial versions of contemporary HMDs accompanied with ergonomic interactions are suitable for implementation in cognitive neuroscience. In conclusion, researchers’ technological competency, along with meticulous methods and reports pertinent to software, hardware, and VRISE, are paramount to ensure the health and safety standards and the reliability of neuroscientific results. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the auditory technopolitics of prenatal sound systems, asking what kinds of futures, listeners and temporalities they seek to produce. With patents for prenatal audio apparatus dating back to the late 1980s, there are now a range of devices available to expectant parents. These sound technologies offer multiple benefits: from soothing away stress to increasing the efficiency of ultrasonic scans. However, one common point of emphasis is their capacity to accelerate foetal ‘learning’ and (...) cognitive development. Taking as exemplary the Babypod and BabyPlus devices, I argue that prenatal sound systems make audible a particular figuration of pregnancy and gestational labour that combines divergent notions of responsibility and passivity. Contra the equation of neoliberalism with self-control and individualism, I argue that prenatal sound systems amplify neoliberal capitalism’s elision of personal, maternal and familial responsibility. As reproductive sound technologies, prenatal sound systems facilitate maternal–familial investment in the pre-born as future-child. Consequently, financialised notions of inheritance are substituted for biological inheritance. Drawing attention to the common rhetorical figuration of the sonic as womb-like, furthermore, I argue that prenatal sound systems exemplify what I refer to as uterine audiophilia. By treating the womb as ‘the perfect classroom’, prenatal sound systems imply an intense maternal obligation to invest in and impress upon the future-child, while also envisioning the pregnant person’s body as an occupied, resonant space. Cohering with a fidelity discourse that posits the reproductive medium as passive container and a source of noise that is to be overcome, uterine audiophilia relies upon politically regressive conceptualisations of pregnancy. I thus argue that these devices mark the hitherto under-theorised convergence of auditory culture, technology and reproductive politics. (shrink)

This article aims at sketching a philosophical theory of sound based on the perspective of sound designers: unique agents blurring the boundaries between engineering, music, acoustics and sound-based art. After having introduced the general framing in Section 1, focusing on a short history of the theory and practice of sound design, in Section 2 we propose a reading of sound as monad. We derive such intuition from the technology of digital sampling of audio signals, based (...) on the decomposition of complex sound waves in a number of elementary sinusoidal waves. Thus, in Section 3, we attempt at grounding the resulting “sound-atom” on Leibniz’s notion of monad, intended both as a “simple substance without parts” and as a “nucleus of forces in statu possibilitatis.” The insight is resumed and further discussed in Section 4, where we draw our conclusions by demonstrating the fitness of such framing with regards to the standpoint of sound design, while accounting for the work of sound artists Carsten Nicolai and Ryoji Ikeda. (shrink)

Much insect sounding is beyond the limits of typical human hearing ability. This sonic separation is exacerbated by a socialized narrative of fear and avoidance of insects in many western societies. With the use of audio technologies to expand our senses, we can embrace opportunities to get to know sensory and communicative insect sound-worlds beyond our own. Ecological sound art – sound art that has an environmentalist intent – is a tangible and accessible means of listening (...) to these sounds. In the series Built Hidden Soundscapes, the primary author (Schonberg) composes imagined soundscapes existing solely of sounds that are beyond the limits of typical human hearing ability. In this article we introduce two compositions in this series, Reserva Florestal Adolpho Ducke and Pipeline Road. These compositions offer a temporary expansion of our aural senses that can increase listeners’ awareness of cryptic insect existences/ecologies. We suggest that this listening practice might prompt future auralization (sounding or hearing in the mind) of insect sound for the listener. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Sounds and Silences:Acknowledging Political EngagementJulia Eklund KozaThis symposium grapples with such questions as "Should music educators participate in political understandings?" The term "politics" often brings to mind "Big P" political matters, including citizenship, governance of the state, the election of officials, and the formation of public policy. Another way of thinking about politics is to associate it with power relations in social interactions of any kind. If one (...) thinks about it in the second way, then wherever there are two or more people, there are politics. Questions such as "Should we participate in politics?" and "How engaged should we be?" become meaningless. Michel Foucault's discussions of the pastoral forms of governance employed by the modern state, specifically the uses of technologies of the self, challenged long-held views about relationships between the individual and the state. In particular, his claim that major dominations are the effects, not the causes, of myriad local and particular mobilizations of power provides a rationale for examining these local mobilizations.1 If major dominations and "Big P" politics are the effects of local mobilizations, then everyone participating in social interactions participates in "Big P" politics, as well.This more global conception of political engagement stands in sharp contrast to a narrower one, which can be described using a "swimmer-on the-shore" metaphor. The swimmer stands on a beach looking out at the sea and decides whether this is a day for a toe dip, wading to the knees, total immersion, or staying out of the water altogether. The swimmer can choose to stay dry (unless inundated by the tide or a tidal wave). This conception is evident in a comment reportedly made by a music education professor in response to two back-to-back annual meetings of the music education researchers at Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) institutions. Both meetings had been devoted to critique of MENC's policies and practices, and the disgruntled professor reportedly remarked, "That's enough about politics; let's get back to talking about music." In his view, which is shaped by the "swimmer" conception, some discussions are political, others are not; while some curricular areas, such as civics and sex education, are political, music is not, nor should it be. If, however, we assume that there is power in all social relations, then the "swimmer" conception has no salience because everyone is immersed; music, because it is a social activity, is political. Its engagement in politics is neither good nor bad, in and of itself; rather, it is inevitable. [End Page 168]Some may concede that although it is not possible to be disengaged, it is necessary and good for scholars and teachers to be politically "neutral." Conceptions of neutrality rely on a one-dimensional linear integers model of political engagement. On the line representing the integers, there is a plus side, a minus side, and zero, the zero presumably being the point of neutrality. People and views associated with the far ends of the line are extreme, while those closer to the zero point are moderate. In addition, positions on the line are assigned a moral value; depending upon the issue and the perspective from which the line is being viewed, plus can be good but minus is bad, plus can be bad but minus is good, neutral can be good, or neutral can be bad. If every issue and every social relation is political, however, and if we assume that people and relationships change, then the linear integers model is inadequate because it fails to embody the dynamic, multi-dimensional character of the complex social relations in which all of us engage. Another problem with the linear integers model is that it fails to interrogate the power vested in whomever or whatever decides what will constitute extreme, moderate, or neutral—what will be deemed reasonable and what outrageous. Sometimes this responsibility has been assigned to a fictitious "reasonable" person without much thought having been given to the political dimensions of the construction of reasoning. What is deemed outrageous in one system of reasoning may be perfectly reasonable in another.Belief that education can and should be objective and neutral comes from... (shrink)

This book is an interdisciplinary project that brings together ideas from aesthetics, philosophy, psychology, and music sociology as an expansion of German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer’s theory on the aesthetics of play. This way of thinking focuses on an ontology of the process of musicking rather than an ontology of discovering fixed and static musical objects. In line with this idea, the author discusses the importance of participation and involvement in this process of musicking, whether as a listener or as a (...) performer. Christensen then goes on to critique and update Gadamer's theory by presenting incompatibilities between it and recent theories of aesthetic emotions and embodiment. He proposes that emotions are ‘constructed’ rather than ‘caused’, that the mind uses a system of ‘filters’ to respond to sonic stimuli and thus constructs aesthetic feelings and experiences. In turn, this approach provides music with a route into the development of social capital and inter-subjective communication. This work builds on the hermeneutical steps already taken by Gadamer and those before him, continuing his line of thought beyond his work. It will be of great interest to scholars in music aesthetics as well as a variety of other music related fields, including music psychology, philosophy and science and technology studies. (shrink)

The history of sonar technology provides a fascinating case study for philosophers of science. During the first and second World Wars, sonar technology was primarily associated with activity on the part of the sonar technicians and researchers. Usually this activity is concerned with creation of sound waves under water, as in the classic “ping and echo”. The last fifteen years have seen a shift toward passive, ambient noise “acoustic daylight imaging” sonar. Along with this shift a new relationship has (...) begun between sonar technicians and environmental ethics. I have found a significant shift in the values, and the environmental ethics, of the underwater community by looking closely at the term “noise” as it has been conceptualized and reconceptualized in the history of sonar technology. To illustrate my view, I will include three specific sets of information: 1) a discussion of the 2003 debate regarding underwater active low- frequency sonar and its impact on marine life; 2) a review of the history of sonar technology in diagrams, abstracts, and artifacts; 3) the latest news from February 2004 on how the military and the acoustic daylight imaging passive sonar community has responded to the current debates. (shrink)

Introduction : digital technology and popular music sound -- Making sense of digital spatiality : Kate Bush's eerie collage -- The instrument formerly known as the machine : hyper-accuracy and sonic richness in Prince's Kiss -- The rebirth of silence in the company of noise : Portishead going retro -- Cut-ups and glitches : Los Sampler's and Squarepusher's freeze and flow -- Seasick computers : microrhythmic manipulation in the era of endless undo -- Autotuned voices : alienation and brokenhearted (...) androids -- Popular music in the digital era. (shrink)

We currently exist in a post-biological age. Mixed-realities shape the way in which we live modern life; half in physical form, half in a hyper-mediated virtual environment of network protocols. This article discusses network-based impacts on neurological navigation and the ways in which the human auditory cortex is developing through conjuncture with post-biological combinations of sound. In doing so, it examines the capacity of the human brain in decoding and understanding the abundance of sound in confluent, variegated realms (...) of existence and how such increased perceptions expand consciousness and, in turn, affect sonic creativity as a somewhat mimicry or response to our immediate auditory environments. Conclusively, it will be argued that the exploration of sound-based creativity can be reinterpreted for post-biological spaces, taking particular aim at the reflective approaches of musique concrète and how such technologically infused ideas can be transformed and recontextualized to match the power and capacity of today’s hybrid environments of occupancy. (shrink)

Abstract In this essay, a new approach for the ethical study of emerging technology ethics will be presented, called anticipatory technology ethics (ATE). The ethics of emerging technology is the study of ethical issues at the R&D and introduction stage of technology development through anticipation of possible future devices, applications, and social consequences. I will argue that a major problem for its development is the problem of uncertainty, which can only be overcome through methodologically sound forecasting and futures studies. (...) I will then consider three contemporary approaches to the ethics of emerging technologies that use forecasting: ethical technology assessment, the techno-ethical scenarios approach and the ETICA approach, and I considered their strengths and weaknesses. Based on this critical study, I then present my own approach: ATE. ATE is a conceptually and methodologically rich approach for the ethical analysis of emerging technologies that incorporates a large variety of ethical principles, issues, objects and levels of analysis, and research aims. It is ready to be applied to contemporary and future emerging technologies. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s11569-012-0141-7 Authors Philip A. E. Brey, Department of Philosophy, School of Behavioral Sciences, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands Journal NanoEthics Online ISSN 1871-4765 Print ISSN 1871-4757. (shrink)

This book traces the profound impact of technical media on the sound of music, asking: how do media technologies shape sound? How does this affect music? And how did it change what we listen for in music? Based on the information theoretical proposition that all transmission channels introduce noise and distortion, the argument accounts for the fact that technologically reproduced music is inherently shaped by the technologies that enable its reproduction. The media archaeological assessment of this (...) noise of sound media developed in the book draws from a wide range of sources, both theoretical and historical, conceptual and technical. Together, they show that noise should not be understood as unwanted by-effect but instead plays a foundational role in shaping the sonic contours of technologically reproduced music. Over the course of five chapters, the book sketches a broad history of the problem of noise in sound recording, looks at specific analog and digital noise-related technologies, traces the ideal of sonic purity back to key developments in nineteenth century acoustics, and develops an analysis of the close interrelation between noise and the temporality of sound. This relation, it argues, is central to the way in which recorded sound and music resonate with listeners. Ultimately, this media specific analysis of the noise of sound media thereby greatly enriches our understanding of the way in which they changed and continue to change the sonorous qualities of music, thus offering a new perspective on the interaction between music, media and listeners. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis article uses the history of early sound recording technology in the united States between 1878 and 1915 to show how published discourse contributed to the way the talking machine was defined and situated as a commercially viable product. Comparing the published accounts of Edison's phonograph and Berliners gramophone in popular scientific articles between 1878 and 1896 illustrates that technological advances in sound recording technology take on important cultural meanings. Critical to these meanings is the way in (...) which the technological “fidelity” is linguistically transformed into an aesthetic quality, projected and interpreted within demonstrable values of musical culture. Beginning in 1902, the Victor Talking Machine Company, formed to market the gramophone, took advantage of these cultural meanings to claim a technological advantage over Edison's cylinder recorder. Whose voice was recorded became part of the claim to technological superiority. The Victor Company succeeded in capitalizing “Culture” by promoting their recordings of opera stars like Enrico Caruso as technologically and culturally faithful to live musical performance and as a democratically available access to a privileged lifestyle. Thus did the Victor Company use a terrier and a tenor to legitimate their talking machine as an American musical instrument. (shrink)

We are obsessed with self-improvement; it’s a billion-dollar industry. But apps, workshops, speakers, retreats, and life hacks have not made us happier. Obsessed with the endless task of perfecting ourselves, we have become restless, anxious, and desperate. We are improving ourselves to death. The culture of self-improvement stems from philosophical classics, perfectionist religions, and a ruthless strain of capitalism—but today, new technologies shape what it means to improve the self. The old humanist culture has given way to artificial intelligence, (...) social media, and big data: powerful tools that do not only inform us but also measure, compare, and perhaps change us forever. This book shows how self-improvement culture became so toxic—and why we need both a new concept of the self and a mission of social change in order to escape it. Mark Coeckelbergh delves into the history of the ideas that shaped this culture, critically analyzes the role of technology, and explores surprising paths out of the self-improvement trap. Digital detox is no longer a viable option and advice based on ancient wisdom sounds like yet more self-help memes: The only way out is to transform our social and technological environment. Coeckelbergh advocates new “narrative technologies” that help us tell different and better stories about ourselves. However, he cautions, there is no shortcut that avoids the ancient philosophical quest to know yourself, or the obligation to cultivate the good life and the good society. (shrink)