Eroding Together: Mattering Processes of Sound

Samuel Thulin

I probe the complexity of material entanglements in situated sound art through an examination of the production and presentation of a recent project on the remote archipelago of the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Quebec, Canada. The work, Compositional Routes of the Magdalen Islands (Thulin 2016), investigates the archipelago through sound, directly informed by the material processes that shape the islands, both physically and socially. In particular the project engages processes of erosion at the meeting point of wind, land, and sea, following the shifting contours of the littoral zone as sandstone cliffs turn to wandering dune formations. Sound here operates not only as material, or the voicing of materials, but as a mattering process that offers an opportunity to consider how different forms of material break apart and fold together. Drawing especially on work from science and technology studies, geography, and sound studies, I argue for a situated understanding of how sound matters and use the particularities of erosion on the Îles-de-la-Madeline as a way of understanding these processes.

Introduction

Compositional Routes

Erosive Matters

Sound Materials Moving

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