Veit Erlmann (ed.): Hearing Cultures. Essays on Sound, Listening and Modernity (2004)
Filed under book | Tags: · acoustics, ethnomusicology, listening, modernity, music, sound recording
Vision is typically treated as the defining sense of the modern era and a powerful vehicle for colonial and postcolonial domination. This is in marked contrast to the almost total absence of accounts of hearing in larger cultural processes.
Hearing Cultures is a timely examination of the elusive, often evocative, and sometimes cacophonous auditory sense – from the intersection of sound and modernity, through to the relationship between audio-technological advances and issues of personal and urban space. As cultures and communities grapple with the massive changes wrought by modernization and globalization, Hearing Cultures presents an important new approach to understanding our world. It answers such intriguing questions as:
· Did people in Shakespeare’s time hear differently from us?
· In what way does technology affect our ears?
· Why do people in Egypt increasingly listen to taped religious sermons?
· Why did Enlightenment doctors believe that music was an essential cure?
· What happens acoustically in cross-cultural first encounters?
· Why do Runa Indians in the Amazon basin now consider onomatopoetic speech child’s talk?
The ear, as much as the eye, nose, mouth and hand, offers a way into experience. All five senses are instruments that record, interpret and engage with the world. This book shows how sound offers a refreshing new lens through which to examine culture and complex social issues.
Publisher Berg Publishers, 2004
Sensory Formations series
ISBN 1859738281, 9781859738283
239 pages
PDF (updated on 2012-8-3)
Comment (0)Barry Blesser, Linda-Ruth Salter: Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? Experiencing Aural Architecture (2007)
Filed under book | Tags: · acoustics, architecture, listening, sound, sound recording
We experience spaces not only by seeing but also by listening. We can navigate a room in the dark, and “hear” the emptiness of a house without furniture. Our experience of music in a concert hall depends on whether we sit in the front row or under the balcony. The unique acoustics of religious spaces acquire symbolic meaning. Social relationships are strongly influenced by the way that space changes sound. In Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?, Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter examine auditory spatial awareness: experiencing space by attentive listening. Every environment has an aural architecture.
The audible attributes of physical space have always contributed to the fabric of human culture, as demonstrated by prehistoric multimedia cave paintings, classical Greek open-air theaters, Gothic cathedrals, acoustic geography of French villages, modern music reproduction, and virtual spaces in home theaters. Auditory spatial awareness is a prism that reveals a culture’s attitudes toward hearing and space. Some listeners can learn to “see” objects with their ears, but even without training, we can all hear spatial geometry such as an open door or low ceiling.
Integrating contributions from a wide range of disciplines—including architecture, music, acoustics, evolution, anthropology, cognitive psychology, audio engineering, and many others—Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? establishes the concepts and language of aural architecture. These concepts provide an interdisciplinary guide for anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of how space enhances our well-being. Aural architecture is not the exclusive domain of specialists. Accidentally or intentionally, we all function as aural architects.
Publisher MIT Press, 2007
ISBN 0262026058, 9780262026055
437 pages
PDF (updated on 2012-8-3)
Comment (1)Zehar, 53-57 (2004-2006) [English/Spanish/Basque]
Filed under magazine | Tags: · archive, art, contemporary art, copyright, creative commons, listening, music, sound recording
“Zehar is a magazine of art and contemporary culture. Zehar uses a transitory denomination (through) to define its purpose as a receptive intermediary between the artistic community and society at large.The magazine’s aim is to maintain a critical reflective spirit, inspired by the conviction of the need for consolidated stable bases, which enrich the context and a plural environment. Zehar is four monthly. In order to encourage the variety of ideas, we devote each issue to one theme and invite a guest editor to work on it.
The section titled Shorts presents reviews about exhibitions, events, books and films. The paper version has two editions, Basque/Spanish and English/Spanish, but the electronic edition is trilingual. Zehar is published by Arteleku, a public art centre under the auspices of the Culture Department of the Regional Government of Gipuzkoa, Basque Country, Spain.”
Perspectives on Listening
Zehar 53, 2004
Decoys and Disruptions
Zehar 55, 2005
Archive Fever
Zehar 56, 2005
Transition
Zehar 57, November 2006