Research Catalogue

an international database for artistic research

• 27. Issue 27 Issue 27

• 
  The Relationality of the Adhaan: A Reading of the Islamic Call to Prayer Through Adriana Cavarero’s Philosophy of Vocal Expression (2017) author(s): Lutfi Othman published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
  The Call to Prayer, the Adhaan, is one of the most instantly recognizable Islamic sounds that we might hear in our soundscape today. For Muslims, the Adhaan is a specific call to notify the Islamic community that the time for prayer has arrived. For those who are not trained to respond to it religiously, the experience of listening to the Adhaan can trigger the formation of different interpretations, sometimes in hostile ways, from its original intent. This paper looks at the Adhaan from the perspective of sound and suggests that the voice of the Mu’adhin, who calls for prayer, carries with it the possibility to be perceived in manifold ways. Through the sound of the human voice and its pervasive nature, the Adhaan carries its original message, fusing it with new meanings, and announces it in a way unique to the voice. Guided by philosopher Ariana Cavarero’s conception of the voice and referencing situations in The United States of America where the Adhaan was at the center of controversy, this paper approaches the Adhaan with a focus on the sound of the voice and the relations that it fosters both intentionally and unintentionally.
  open exposition comments (0)
• 
  Editorial: Sound Studies and Politics (2017) author(s): Vincent Meelberg published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
  Editorial: Sound Studies and Politics
  open exposition comments (0)
• 
  Listening like White Nationalists at a Civil Rights Rally (2017) author(s): Bryce Peake published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
  This soundscape and accompanying essay explore the listened-to world of white nationalists protesting a 2015 civil rights rally in the United States. Marked by countless instances of police brutality and a racially motivated mass shooting, the autumn months of 2015 echoed with the rallying cries of Black Lives Matter… cries that stoked white nationalists’ nascent conspiracy theories about white genocide and an impending “race war” between black Islam and white Christendom. Both the new Civil Rights movement and these white nationalist fears came to a head at the Justice or Else Rally in October 2015. This essay explores the acoustemological – acoustic and epistemological – world of white nationalists protesting Justice or Else, using the nexus of creativity and empiricism to understand a white nationalist standpoint acoustemology proliferating in Donald Trump’s United States.
  open exposition comments (0)
• 
  The sounds of food: Defamiliarization and the blinding of taste (2017) author(s): Tara Brabazon published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
  This essay – situated within the small but emerging field of sonic food studies and gastronomic auditory cultures – is positioned in the gap between the sounds of food and the meanings derived from the behaviors and practices encircling food. In food studies literature, assumptions abound about multi-sensory engagement. Yet, the sonic components of food remain undertheorized. This sonic research article – consisting of an sonic artifact and exegesis – emphasizes and prioritizes sensory incongruity. Intentionally, the non-eating sounds of the digital and analogue interactions surrounding food are summoned. There is a reason for the focus on these interfaces. Working with Viktor Shklovsky’s theorization of defamiliarization or ostranenie (остранение), presented in his 1917 essay “Art as Device,” I am interested in reducing “automatization” and value “disruptions.” I have produced a sonic artifact that textualizes three slices of food sound: shopping for groceries, the delivery of food to a domicile, and cooking. These sounds were not slotted into a convenient narrative of a sonic documentary. They were not staged; they were not sound effects. There is a gap – of experience, expertise, perception, and meaning – between signifier and signified, the sound and its reception. The deferral of meaning creates hesitation, confusion, instability, and unsettles meaning systems.
  open exposition comments (0)
• 
  “City Noise”: Sound (Art) and Disaster (2017) author(s): Frans Ari Prasetyo published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
  My sonic work “City Noise” proposes both an artistic and a theoretical approach to the city-sound relationship. The default assumption about this relationship is that sounds reflect a one-to-one relationship between soundscape and landscape, both drawing upon and revealing the physical and social landscapes from which they originate. However, the question can be posed regarding whether there actually is a direct relationship between sound and place in our increasingly globalized world. Due to this globalization, the relation between the local and the global has become more fluid, and the relation between sounds and scapes has begun to blur.
  open exposition comments (0)
• 
  “You can hear them before you see them” Listening through Belfast segregated neighborhoods (2017) author(s): Nicola Di Croce published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
  The present research explores urban segregation in Belfast through listening. Specifically, the aim is to investigate how auditory culture subtly and deeply affects everyday lives and how marginal areas can be identified and analyzed from an auditory perspective. Moreover, the paper highlights the strong relationship between everyday sonic environments, certain urban and social issues, and the system of public policies related to the preceding. Therefore, urban planning and public policy design are investigated through a sonic studies approach in order to reveal the political framework of the city. The sonic environment of Belfast’s most segregated areas is characterized by ice cream van melodies and their propagation within different neighborhoods. Such a street trade, which is also spread over Great Britain and Ireland, represents the perfect opportunity to enter areas that are often difficult to approach. The case study shows how a study of the production and reception of the moving melodies emanating from ice cream vans is crucial in detecting where and how Belfast's contemporary culture is developing and in what ways sonic studies may influence a new wave of inclusion policies. The sounds of ice cream vans and their dissemination can be investigated to both confirm and challenge Belfast’s segregation trend; understanding them offers practitioners and dwellers an unexplored “sonic tool” to discuss segregation.
  open exposition comments (0)