3.2 Material Understandings
In new materialism, an emerging trend of critical research, sounds are conceptualized as vibrational energies. Instead of focusing on the qualities of the sonic object, scholars in the fields of music and sound studies are increasingly paying attention to the material and physical dimensions of sound production and reception (Fast, Leppänen and Tiainen 2018). These include the vibration of particles in different media – such as air or water – and in organic or inorganic bodies, entities and materialities that produce and receive sounds – such as the flesh, bones and sense organs of human bodies, sound technologies, built acoustic spaces, and so on (Friedner and Helmreich 2012; Eidsheim 2015: 27–57). Within this framework, musical and sonic practices are seen as vibrational events that create dynamic connections between the participating bodies and entities. Participants exchange vibrational energies – a kind of force – with each other, affecting and being affected in the process (Goodman 2009: 81–84; Eidsheim 2015). These vibrations elicit resonances, reflections, and varied responses that extend beyond the auditory register to tactile, physical, and material sensations as well as embodied cognitive and affective processes (Eidsheim 2015; Fast, Leppänen and Tiainen 2018).
New materialism – drawing upon Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s philosophical notion of material vitalism (1987 [1980])[16] – offers a distinct perspective on matter and material formations. According to philosopher Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter (2010), matter is no longer conceived as essentially rough, rudimentary, inert, or passive, but, on the contrary, as vivid, vibrant, energetic, and active. Vibrations attest to, animate, and enhance the liveliness and agential capacities of matter (Fast, Leppänen and Tiainen 2018). They turn material formations into active agents from which energy radiates into the environment (Bennett 2010: 20–38). Such formations, inherently vital, are not merely raw materials serving the purposes of others; they exhibit thing-power or resistance – the capacity to influence processes and outcomes (Bennett 2010: 1–19; see Adorno 2004 [1966]: 144). Sound artist Andy Birtwistle, speaking about contemporary sonic art, describes the notion of material resistance as follows:
Material resistance may thus be understood as an entanglement of agencies that is weighted towards the material: an interaction in which matter is no longer thought of in anthropocentric terms as raw material to be given form and meaning by the artist, but rather, one in which the material declares its ontological independence and integrity. (Birtwistle 2020: n.p.)
The new materialist approach has ethical, ecological, and political implications. While expanding our awareness to the full range of material vitality, it removes barriers between dichotomies such as human and animal, organic and inorganic, active and passive, and life and matter (Bennett 2010: x, 52–61, 94–109). It proposes a continuum between human and other-than-human, or more-than-human, parties or forces, a multitude of forms that are not limited to the “living” or even “physical” or “visible” (Abram 1997; Chamel and Dansac 2022: 2–3). Furthermore, it highlights the co-occurrence and interconnectedness of all bodies, entities, and beings, as if saying: “ontologically one, formally diverse” (Deleuze 1992: 67, quoted in Bennett 2010: xi). Such thinking reconfigures previous starkly anthropocentric understandings of music, sound, and other cultural phenomena, putting human superiority and power within brackets (Fast, Leppänen and Tiainen 2018). In Bennett's words:
We need to cultivate a bit of anthropomorphism – the idea that human agency has some echoes in nonhuman nature – to counter the narcissism of humans in charge of the world. (Bennett 2010: xvi).