Leigh Landy: Understanding the Art of Sound Organization (2007)

The art of sound organization, also known as electroacoustic music, uses sounds not available to traditional music making, including pre-recorded, synthesized, and processed sounds. The body of work of such sound-based music (which includes electroacoustic art music, turntable composition, computer games, and acoustic and digital sound installations) has developed more rapidly than its musicology. Understanding the Art of Sound Organization proposes the first general foundational framework for the study of the art of sound organization, defining terms, discussing relevant forms of music, categorizing works, and setting sound-based music in interdisciplinary contexts.

Leigh Landy’s goal in this book is not only to create a theoretical framework but also to make sound-based music more accessible—to give a listener what he terms “something to hold on to,” for example, by connecting elements in a work to everyday experience. Landy considers the difficulties of categorizing works and discusses such types of works as sonic art and electroacoustic music, pointing out where they overlap and how they are distinctive. He proposes a “sound-based music paradigm” that transcends such traditional categories as art and pop music. Landy defines patterns that suggest a general framework and places the study of sound-based music in interdisciplinary contexts, from acoustics to semiotics, proposing a holistic research approach that considers the interconnectedness of a given work’s history, theory, technological aspects, and social impact.

The author’s ElectroAcoustic Resource Site (EARS, www.ears.dmu.ac.uk), the architecture of which parallels this book’s structure, offers updated bibliographic resource abstracts and related information.

Publisher MIT Press, 2007
ISBN 0262122928, 9780262122924
303 pages

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Chris Jenks (ed.): Visual Culture (1995)

In Visual Culture the ‘visual’ character of contemporary culture is explored in original and lively essays. The contributors look at advertising, film, painting and fine art journalism, photography, television and propaganda. They argue that there is only a social, not a formal relation between vision and truth. A major preoccupation of modernity and central to an understadning of the postmodern, ‘vision’ and the ‘visual’ are emergent themes across sociology, cultural studies and critical theory in the visual arts. Visual Culture will prove an indispensable guide to the field.

Publisher Routledge, 1995
ISBN 0415106230, 9780415106238
Length 269 pages

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Félix Guattari: The Three Ecologies (1989–) [FR, PT, DE, EN]

Just as rare species are disappearing at an alarming rate, so whole areas of human thought, feeling and sensibility are becoming extinct through the power of an infantalizing mass media and the social exclusion of the old, the young and the unemployed. Extending the definition of ecology to encompass social relations and human subjectivity as well as environmental concerns, Guattari argues that the ecological crises that threaten our planet are the direct result of the expansion of a new form of capitalism and that a new ecosophical approach must be found which respects the differences between all living systems.

A powerful critique of capitalism and a manifesto for a new way of thinking, The Three Ecologies is also an ideal introduction to the work of one of Europe’s most radical thinkers. This edition of The Three Ecologies includes a chronology of Guattari’s life and work, introductions to both his general philosophy and to the work itself and extended notes to the original text.

French edition
Publisher Éditions Galilée, Paris, 1989
ISBN 2718603518
74 pages

English edition
Translation by Ian Pindar and Paul Sutton
Publisher Athlone Press, London, 2000
ISBN 0485004089, 9780485004083
174 pages

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Les trois écologies (French, 1989, added on 2014-3-21)
As três ecologias (Portuguese, trans. Maria Cristina F. Bittencourt, 1990, updated on 2012-10-18)
Die drei Ökologien (German, trans. Alec A. Schaeret, 1994, added on 2016-4-27)
The Three Ecologies (English, trans. Ian Pindar and Paul Sutton, 2000, updated on 2012-10-18)