Sonic Mediations: Body Sound Technology

by Carolyn Birdsall and Anthony Enns, Editors
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, 2008
286 pp., ills. 10 b/w. Trade, $79.99
ISBN: 1-84718-483-9.

Reviewed by John F. Barber
Digital Technology and Culture
Washington State University Vancouver

jfbarber@eaze.net


A great deal of academic theory and research is devoted to discipline-specific study of sound in cinema, social thought, new media technologies, music, orality, and literacy, as well as the avant-garde in general. Within such contexts questions are raised concerning the study of sound when it crosses disciplinary boundaries. How, for example, does one define a field of interdisciplinary sound studies that encompasses music, literature, film, art, theater, and performance?

One approach is to identify common concerns that can become objects of analysis for more fundamental philosophical questions.

This is the approach taken by Sonic Mediations: Body Sound Technology edited by Carolyn Birdsall and Anthony Enns. This collection of essays identifies meditation as one of the core concerns for scholars working in sound studies because, according to the editors, mediation "touches on most basic questions concerning the relations between the body, sound and technology" (2-3, emphasis in original), it avoids technological determinism or the overgeneralization of the phenomenal body, and it allows scholars to recognize sound as "a co-participating agent in cultural practices and performance" (3).

Each chapter in this collection provides a detailed and focused case study involving different sound and music technologies, performances, and installations. These case studies come for diverse disciplinary backgrounds like musicology, film and media studies, art history, comparative literature, philosophy, theater studies, and science and technology studies. And, each case study deals with specific aspects of sonic mediation like affect, memory, voice, musical gesture, gender, sampling, narrative, interactivity, and intermediality.

Additionally, each essay focuses on specific questions. How are audio performances mediated by sound technologies and the performer's body? How do bodies and technologies mediate the experience of auditory perception? What is the role of the listener in audio-based performances? How does sound mediate the experience of viewing optical media and how does this complicate vision-oriented theories of spectatorship?

Section 1, "Mediating Perception" examines the body as the mediator between sonic events and technologies. Essays in this section explore the relationship between sound technologies, auditory perception, and memory; precultural factors determining sonic effects, such as anxiety; and the physical role of the body in the act of listening.

Section 2, "Mediating Performance" examines the intersections between performers and machines. Essays in this section explore the role of contemporary sound technologies in music production; how sound technologies destabilize authorial control and gender identities; and the specific function of corporeality in composition, performance, and perception.

Section 3, "Mediating Space" examines how sound technologies and installations offer new ways of thinking about how sound mediates between listeners and the spatial environment. Essays in this section explore how the shape of the performer's mouth is mediated during electronic music performances; how atmospheric noise received by electronic sound technologies inspire new relationships between people and their spatial environments; the potential interaction(s) between sound, technology, and audience in sound installations; and how sound installations can convey a sense of history dependent on the listener's embodied experience and participation.

Section 4, "Mediating Audiovision" examines the role of both image and sound in mediating theatrical and cinematic events. Essays in this section explore what happens when opera is incorporated into cinema, and vice-versa; how interactions between visual and acoustic elements in contemporary musical theater allow audiences to reflect on the effects of the theater itself as a medium; and how interactions between visual and acoustic elements create a critical relationship with regard to fixed narratives.

Through their selection of essays, as well as their arrangement in these thematic sections, editors Birdsall and Enns attempt to extend the limitations on existing disciplinary frameworks surrounding the study of sound, while at the same time elucidating fundamental concerns relevant to scholars of sound. As a result, "sonic" is shown to encompass voice, music, noise, and silence, and thus presents itself as a much broader category of study. "Mediations" is shown to include contributions of the sonic event itself, as well as corporeality, and the technological apparatus involved in the production, performance, and participation of that sonic event.

The end result is, then, an attempt to establish a model for sound studies as a mosaic of innovative approaches where scholars from varied fields can enter into productive dialogues around shared theoretical concerns.