Research Catalogue

an international database for artistic research

• 27. Issue 27 Issue 27

• 
  Overhearing the Unheimlich Home: Power and Proximity in “Shut Up Little Man!” (2021) author(s): Hannah Spaulding published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
  This article explores the relationship between home and the auditory through an examination of the “Shut Up Little Man!” recordings – secret tapes made by two men of their next-door neighbors’ fights. These recordings documented the vocal performances of an unheimlich domesticity, marked by poverty, violence, and what would become iconic phrases. Embraced as comedy, the tapes were traded and shared, gaining subcultural fan followings and broader popular cultural impacts. The “Shut Up Little Man!” recordings thus offer crucial case study of the permeability of the domestic soundscape, the struggle of ownership over sounds at home, the ethics and politics of eavesdropping, and the intervention of media technologies in these dynamics. Ultimately, this article argues that the tapes’ creation, power, and popularity stem from a desire to listen to the unheimlich home of the urban poor – a desire that underscores social distance, invites identification, and reminds us that proximity does not mean intimacy.
  open exposition comments (0)
• Sonic Relations as Bulging Spheres (2021) author(s): Sandra Lori Petersen published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
  In multistory housing, sounds occasionally penetrate the walls and floors separating apartments. It may seem like this is a one-way flow of acoustic waves moving through built material from one inhabitant to another. In this article, I show that acoustic waves passing among apartments often move in more ways than just through built material. I propose a conceptualization of the auditory connection between neighbors as sonic relations that consist not only of concrete sounds but also of a range of abstract emotional layers, elements of personal histories, and interpersonal conflicts. Through an exploration of the accounts of two neighbors living in an early 20th-century building in Copenhagen, I show how the sonic relation between them can be understood as interfering in the domestic-personal spheres that shape both of them.
  open exposition comments (0)
• 
  At Home in Montreal’s Quartier des Spectacles Festival Neighborhood (2021) author(s): Edda Bild, Daniel Steele, and Catherine Guastavino published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
  Urban festivals have traditionally been considered incompatible with residential areas because of their contrasting sonic characters, where the sounds of festivals are treated as a nuisance for residents. However, the neighborhood dedicated to housing festivals in downtown Montreal is also the home of diverse groups of residents and workers. Based on a diary and interview study with residents of the Quartier des spectacles festival neighborhood, and building upon research on touristification, festivals as third places, and soundscape, we explored what it meant to be at home in a festival neighborhood, focusing on the sonic experiences of locals. Findings provided a more nuanced portrayal of everyday life in a dense, lively urban environment transformed through touristification. Residents do not consider the sounds of festivals as a primary source of annoyance; on the contrary, these sounds inspire them to engage with their neighborhood, suggesting a more porous living experience between indoor and outdoor spaces. Drawing on the characterization of other imagined residents by our participants, we conclude by introducing the idea of soundscape personas as a practical method in participatory decision-making for the future of the neighborhood.
  open exposition comments (0)
• 
  ANTIVIRUS !Make some domestic noise! on ∏ Node Part I (2021) author(s): Sarah Brown and Valentina Vuksic, Valentina Vuksic published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
  Stream your domestic appliances on p-node.org: fridge, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, coffee machine, etc. You can also use gardening tools. I’ll mix them and re-stream the mix on ANTIVIRUS. (As you know, we can easily mix different streams on the p-node website by changing the volume levels and streaming the mix at the end.)
  open exposition comments (1)
• 
  Editorial - Sound at Home 1: Territory, Materiality and the Extension of Home (2021) author(s): Mette Simonsen Abildgaard published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
  For this special issue of the Journal of Sonic Studies, we invited authors to consider sound at home from a range of perspectives: sound at home as the hum of appliances, the babble of water pipes, the chatter of media, and the creaking of a wooden floor; sounds that seep in from other homes and from the world outside – traffic, music, shouting, disconcerting sounds that stand out, and sounds that go unheard in their familiarity.
  open exposition comments (0)
• 
  Sounds of Another Home: Telepresence, COVID-19 and a Bioscience Laboratory in Transition (2021) author(s): Rebecca Carlson published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
  Based on an ethnography of a bioscience laboratory in Tokyo before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper focuses on telepresence, and the growing demand for workers to maintain extended simultaneous presence in multiple electronic, or electronically augmented, spaces. In contrast to views promoting the liberating affordances of telework in the maintenance of healthy work-life balance (reduced commute time; increased “presence” in family life), an analysis of sound reveals the way the home becomes reorganized, and ultimately de-prioritized, under work demands. In particular, online meetings, which privilege discrete information exchange, position the home as a barrier to productive communications. Receding the soundscape of the home in this way reflects a normalization of the neoliberal imperative to find self-realization in workplace forms of sociality.
  open exposition comments (0)