Reverberations: The Philosophy, Aesthetics and Politics of Noise

by Michael Goddard (Editor), Benjamin Halligan (Editor), Paul Hegarty (Editor)

Overview

Noise permeates our highly mediated and globalised cultures. Noise as art, music, cultural or digital practice is a way of intervening so that it can be harnessed for an aesthetic expression not caught within mainstream styles or distribution.

This wide-ranging book examines the concept and practices of noise, treating noise not merely as a sonic phenomenon but as an essential component of all communication and information systems. The book opens with ideas of what noise is, and then works through ideas of how noise works in contemporary media, to conclude by showing potentials within noise for a continuing cultural renovation through experimentation. Considered in this way, noise is seen as an essential yet excluded element of contemporary culture that demands a rigorous engagement. Reverberations brings together a range of perspectives, case studies, critiques and suggestions as to how noise can mobilize thought and cultural activity through a heightening of critical creativity.Written by a strong, international line-up of scholars and artists, Reverberations looks to energize this field of study and initiate debates for years to come.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781441130174
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	05/31/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Dr Michael Goddard is Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Salford. He has published research in media and aesthetic theory, Eastern European film and visual culture and anomalous forms of popular music.

Dr Ben Halligan runs the Graduate Programme for the School of Media, Music and Performance at the University of Salford, UK, teaching in the areas of Critical Theory, Media Studies and Performance at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Dr Halligan is currently involved with the University's move to MediaCityUK, and its new facilities with the BBC.
Michael N. Goddard is Senior Lecturer and Course Leader in Film, Television and Moving image at the University of Westminster, UK. He has published widely on international cinema, audiovisual culture, and media theory. He recently published a book, Impossible Cartographies on the cinema of Raúl Ruiz. He has also been doing research on the fringes of popular music culminating in co-editing two books on noise, Reverberations and Resonances. Most recently, his research focuses on contemporary audiovisual popular culture and urban space. He is currently a Special Visiting Researcher, working with a team of researchers at Unisinos, Brazil on the project, “Cities, Creative Industries and Popular Music Scenes.”
Benjamin Halligan is the Director of the Doctoral College of the University of Wolverhampton, UK. His publications include Hotbeds of Licentiousness: The British Glamour Film and the Permissive Society (2022), Desires for Reality: Radicalism and Revolution in Western European Film (2016) and Michael Reeves (2003), and the co-edited collections: Politics of the Many (2021); Stories We Could Tell (2018); The Arena Concert (2015); The Music Documentary (2013); Resonances (2013); Reverberations (2012); and Mark E. Smith and The Fall (2010).
Paul Hegarty is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK. He is the author and editor of 11 books that span critical and cultural theory, rock, experimental and noise music, as well as audiovisual art including Noise/Music (Bloomsbury, 2007), Rumour and Radiation (Bloomsbury, 2014) and Annihilating Noise (Bloomsbury, 2020). He is also Co-editor of Bloomsbury's Ex:Centrics series.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Contributors' Biographical Notes

Introduction. Michael Goddard, Benjamin Halligan and Paul Hegarty

The Philosophy and Aesthetics of Noise
1. Paul Hegarty, 'A Chronic Condition: Noise and Time'
2. Scott Wilson, 'Amusia, Noise and the Drive'
3. Brian Massumi, 'Floating the Social: An Electronic Art of Noise'
4. Cecile Malaspina, 'The Noise Paradigm'
5. Dean Lockwood, 'Mongrel Vibrations: H. P. Lovecraft's Weird Ecology of Noise'
6. José Cláudio Castanheira, 'The Matter of Numbers: Sound and the Experience of Noise in Analog and Digital Models'

Audiovisual Noise Practices
7. Benjamin Halligan, ' "As If From the Sky": Divine and Secular Dramaturgies of Noise'
8. Laura Wilson, 'Physical Spectatorship: Noise and Rape in Irreversible'
9. Robert Walker, 'Cinematic Tinnitus'
10. Daniel Cookney, 'Sshhh'
11. Rob Gawthrop, 'Thunder and Lightning: Noise, Aesthetics and Audio-visual Avant-garde Practice'
12. Felicity J. Colman, 'Sound Manifesto: Lee Ranaldo's Notes for Robert Smithson'

Noise, Ethics and Politics
13. GegenSichKollectiv, 'Anti-Self: Experience-less Noise'
14. Marie Thompson, 'Music for Cyborgs: The Affect and Ethics of Noise Music'
15. Saeed Hydaralli, 'What is Urban Noise? An Inquiry into its Formal Properties'
16. Khadijah White, 'Considering Sound: Language, Meaning and the Construction of Noise'
17. Bruce Russell, 'Exploding the atmosphere: Realizing the revolutionary potential of "the last street song" '

Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Michael Goddard, Benjamin Halligan, and Paul Hegarty are three exceptional individuals, at least insofar as thinking about noise is concerned...I recommend Reverberations for its novel insights into aspects of sound we all too often simply despise or dismiss out of hand." --Michael Saffle, Virginia Tech, Journal of Musicological Research

"Reverberations stands as a thoroughgoing map of the overarching philosophical terrain ... constitutes a meaningful contribution to the study of musical aesthetics. [Reverberations and Resonances] are a significant achievement, a comprehensive collection of thinking to date about where noise fits into our cultural lives, pointing forward towards a fertile development of the field." - Adam Behr, University of Edinburgh, UK, Popular Music

From the Publisher

Michael Goddard, Benjamin Halligan, and Paul Hegarty are three exceptional individuals, at least insofar as thinking about noise is concerned...I recommend Reverberations for its novel insights into aspects of sound we all too often simply despise or dismiss out of hand.

Michael Saffle