Controlling the Ephemeral
The beginning of the twentieth century in Western countries saw the emergence of various efforts to control the sonic phenomena and the practices understood as excessive for community life. The meaning ascribed to noise changes as certain sounds come to be interpreted as exceeding what is tolerable. The boundaries of acceptance and excess are produced in a dialectical relation with the modern imaginary, which gradually adopts a negative image of noise and manifests an urge to manipulate it.
This control is produced through two processes: a technological and a legal one. The emergence of recording and reproduction technologies gave birth to a new sonic experience. These are the first steps in the generation of a schizophonic state (Schafer 1969: 57), that is, the separation between a sound and its source. The first techniques through which sounds turn into sonic data, measurable in terms of power and frequency, emerge from the introduction of these technologies. This process is particularly interesting, as, currently, measurability allows for more objective proposals of models, diagnosis, and solutions to the problem of urban noise. Legal norms intend to banish certain sonic practices by means of awareness and penalty. The introduction of laws indicate not only the state’s attempts to control sonority in public spaces but also those practices that are part of the city’s daily aural life.
