Thor Magnusson: Sonic Writing: Technologies of Material, Symbolic, and Signal Inscriptions (2019)

“Sonic Writing explores how contemporary music technologies trace their ancestry to previous forms of instruments and media. Studying the domains of instrument design, musical notation, and sound recording under the rubrics of material, symbolic, and signal inscriptions of sound, the book describes how these historical techniques of sonic writing are implemented in new digital music technologies. With a scope ranging from ancient Greek music theory, medieval notation, early modern scientific instrumentation to contemporary multimedia and artificial intelligence, it provides a theoretical grounding for further study and development of technologies of musical expression. The book draws a bespoke affinity and similarity between current musical practices and those from before the advent of notation and recording, stressing the importance of instrument design in the study of new music and projecting how new computational technologies, including machine learning, will transform our musical practices.

Sonic Writing offers a richly illustrated study of contemporary musical media, where interactivity, artificial intelligence, and networked devices disclose new possibilities for musical expression. Thor Magnusson provides a conceptual framework for the creation and analysis of this new musical work, arguing that contemporary sonic writing becomes a new form of material and symbolic design–one that is bound to be ephemeral, a system of fluid objects where technologies are continually redesigned in a fast cycle of innovation.”

Publisher Bloomsbury Academic, New York & London, 2019
ISBN 9781501313851, 1501313851
xiv+290 pages

Reviews: Gregory Taylor (Cycling ’74, 2019), Diana Chester (Interference, 2019).

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Frode Weium, Tim Boon (eds.): Material Culture and Electronic Sound (2013)

“This eighth volume of the Artefacts series explores how material culture has affected music and sound. Technological innovations in music that were originally created to solve existing problems have ended up expanding the range of what can be done musically and changing the landscape of music. Boon and Weium present a collection of essays exploring technological innovations and their effects on musical culture. Contributors include composers, performers, musicologists, and scientists, providing diverse insights into the nature of music.”

Foreword by Brian Eno
Publisher Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, Washington, DC, 2013
Artefacts: Studies in the History of Science and Technology series, 8
ISBN 1944466088, 9781944466084
xvii+293 pages

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Marget Long: Flash + Cube, 1965-1975 (2012)

“Flash + Cube (1965-1975) is an artist’s book about the Sylvania flashcube — the space-aged, flash photography device, revolutionary in 1965 and nearly obsolete by 1975. Assembled from a wide range of archival materials — a “terrorist letter,” G.I. photographs from Vietnam, Sylvania flashcube advertisements, as well as Long’s photographs and photomontages—the book explores the links between light, war, history and photography.

Apart from its circulation as a novelty item online, the flashcube is largely forgotten. The history of photographic flash is also often relegated to a footnote and is strikingly under-analyzed. Yet flash’s blinding effects and military genealogy, and the flashcube’s precise contemporaneity with the war in Vietnam make this a rich analytical object with which to reflect on the cultural, political and economic imperatives of its moment. As Long’s deft work with this archive shows, the flashcube is good to think with.”

Publisher Punctum Books, New York, 2012
Open access
ISBN 9780615624426, 0615624421
[151] pages

Review: Anna McCarthy (Social Text, 2012).

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Scribd (2nd ed, 2013)