Abstract
Audio recording is conventionally understood either as reproducing sounds or as representing them. This chapter begins by outlining these two conceptual filters, and then elaborates a third way of hearing audio recording: as performance. Bringing together elements of non-representational theory and materialist media theory, Gallagher draws attention to the physical processes of audio rather than its communicative and discursive functions, and discusses the implications for truth claims and the politics of sonic knowledge. Gallagher then examines how styles of audio production used in sound art can be used to amplify the performativity of audio.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Altman, R. (1992). Introduction: Four and a half film fallacies. In R. Altman (Ed.), Sound theory/sound practice (pp. 35–45). London: Routledge.
Arup. (n.d.). HS2 SoundLab demonstrations, simulating the sound of trains along the proposed HS2 route. Retrieved 20 September 2018 from https://www.arup.com/projects/hs2-soundlab-demonstrations.
Bartlett, B., & Bartlett, J. (2017). Practical recording techniques: The step-by-step approach to professional audio recording. New York, NY: Routledge.
Burgemeister, K. (2013). Wind farms: Hearing is believing. Retrieved from http://thoughts.arup.com/post/details/313/wind-farms-hearing-is-believing.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York, NY: Routledge.
Cardiff, J. (2005). The walk book. Vienna, Austria: Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary.
Chion, M. (1994). Audio-vision: Sound on screen. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Cox, C. (2009). Sound art and the sonic unconscious. Organised Sound,14, 19–26.
Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and repetition (P. Patton, Trans.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Dewsbury, J.-D. (2003). Witnessing space: ‘Knowledge without contemplation’. Environment and Planning A,35, 1907–1932.
Drever, J. L. (2002). Soundscape composition: The convergence of ethnography and acousmatic music. Organised Sound,7(1), 21–27.
Durkin, A. (2014). Decomposition: A music manifesto. New York, NY: Pantheon.
Feld, S., & Brenneis, D. (2004). Doing anthropology in sound. American Ethnologist,31, 461–474.
Gallagher, M. (2014). Sounding ruins: Reflections on the production of an ‘audio drift’. Cultural Geographies. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474014542745.
Geier, M., Ahrens, J., & Spors, S. (2010). Object-based audio reproduction and the audio scene description format. Organised Sound,15, 219–227.
Kittler, F. A. (1999). Gramophone, film, typewriter. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Koutsomichalis, M. (2013). On soundscapes, phonograpy, and environmental sound art. Journal of Sonic Studies, 4. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355771816000315.
Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
MacLure, M., Holmes, R., Jones, L., & MacRae, C. (2010). Silence as resistance to analysis: Or, on not opening one’s mouth properly. Qualitative Inquiry,16, 492–500.
Makagon, D., & Neumann, M. (2009). Recording culture: Audio documentary and the ethnographic experience. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Pedersen, E., van den Berg, F., Bakker, R., & Bouma, J. (2009). Response to noise from modern wind farms in the Netherlands. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,126, 634–643.
Pinder, D. (2001). Ghostly footsteps: Voices, memories and walks in the city. Ecumene,8, 1–19.
Rendell, J. (2006). Art and architecture: A place between. London, UK: I.B. Tauris.
Rennie, T. (2014). Socio-sonic: An ethnographic methodology for electroacoustic composition. Organised Sound,19, 117–124.
Sterne, J. (2012). MP3: The meaning of a format. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Thrift, N. J. (2008). Non-representational theory: Space, politics, affect. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Underriner, C. F. (2017). The sound-poetry of the instability of reality: The audio reality effect and mimesis. Organised Sound,22, 20–31.
Vallee, M. (2014). Glenn Gould’s The Idea of North: The cultural politics of benevolent domination. TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 32, 21–41.
van den Berg, F. (2009). Wind turbines: Why they are noisy and what to do about it. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,125, 2623.
Vogelin, S. (2010). Listening to noise and silence: Toward a philosophy of sound art. London, UK: Continuum.
Wynne, J. (2010). Hearing faces, seeing voices: Sound art, experimentalism and the ethnographic gaze. In C. Wright & A. Schneider (Eds.), Between art and anthropology: Contemporary ethnographic practice (pp. 49–67). London, UK: Berg.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gallagher, M. (2019). Audio Recording as Performance. In: Boyd, C.P., Edwardes, C. (eds) Non-Representational Theory and the Creative Arts. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5749-7_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-5749-7_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-5748-0
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-5749-7
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)