Organised Sound

http://journals.cambridge.org/OSO
Additional services for Organised

Sound:

Email alerts: Click here

Subscriptions: Click here
Commercial reprints: Click here
Terms of use : Click here

Frances Dyson, Sounding New Media: Immersion and Embodiment in the Arts and Culture. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-520-25899-0.
Nina Sun Eidsheim and Mandy-Suzanne Wong
Organised Sound / Volume 16 / Issue 03 / December 2011, pp 284 - 286
DOI: 10.1017/S1355771811000331, Published online: 15 November 2011

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1355771811000331

How to cite this article:
Nina Sun Eidsheim and Mandy-Suzanne Wong (2011). Organised Sound, 16, pp 284-286 doi:10.1017/S1355771811000331
Request Permissions : Click here

Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/OSO, IP address: 92.27.214.77 on 21 Apr 2016

284 Book reviews

Frances Dyson, Sounding New Media: Immersion and

Embodiment in the Arts and Culture. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-520-25899-0.
doi:10.1017/S1355771811000331
New media artist and theorist Frances Dyson
provides an engaging demonstration of productive
interactions between critical theory and artistic
creation. Her book would provide a useful launching
point for electroacoustic artists who wish to consider
how their work as well as the traditions and technologies underlying electroacoustic studies may
relate to virtual reality. Although Dysons standpoint
is largely critical and philosophical, as opposed to
technical or musicological, this perspective enables
her to take a broad look at points of contact between
several disciplines (in particular, new media studies
and electroacoustic studies) and varieties of technology (including tape recorders, cinematic technologies,
telephones and digital-audio tools).
She also highlights an interesting theoretical problem
that may be provocative especially to creators of sound
installation, cinematic sound and electroacoustic performance: namely, the disappearance of machines from
conversations about machine-produced works. She
approaches this problem, first, by pointing out that
theorists and artists who talk about virtual reality do so
in terms originally reserved for audio, or technologically
processed sound. She then argues that conversations
both about audio and virtual reality rely on the notion
that these are wholly immersive, therefore immediate,
experiences. Here the word immediate implies that
the mediating machines used to generate audio
and virtual reality tape recorders, computers and so
on are somehow overlooked, or made transparent,
by conversation.
Dyson develops her argument by investigating how
theories and designs of various audio technologies
from telephony to musique concre`te and digital audio
rely on certain recurring, theoretical themes, subsequently pointing out that new media discourses rely on
similar themes. The themes include: proximity, embodiment/disembodiment, objects, silence and noise all
of which are names for sensations, experiences,
impressions that may create (or hinder) the feeling of
being immersed in sound itself.
For example, Dyson opens Chapter 1 with an
astute investigation of how communications technologies, such as telephony and shortwave radio, use
noise-reduction techniques to create the illusion that
communicating parties are physically near to one
other that is, in immediate proximity. The downside here is that bodily noises, such as breathing and
the smacking of lips, are eliminated from our interactions. The upside, of course, is that we hear each
others words distinctly. Thus, whilst we may immerse
in the spoken language common to both parties, the

individuality of our bodies and voices is silenced.

Dyson suggests that a similar kind of disembodiment
happens in cyberspace.
Moreover, through tracing how the themes described above permeated the foundations of new media
studies, Dyson provides a useful historical analysis of
important but understudied works and issues within
electroacoustic music such as Lastronome, Edgard
Vare`ses unrealised opera collaboration with Antonin
Artaud (begun in 1928), and Schaeffer and Cages
relationships with electronics (Chapter 2). Dysons
discussion of Lastronome reminds us about early
efforts of treating sound as a compositional material
and voice as bodily emission (p. 33) notions much
re-visited in late twentieth- and early twenty-firstcentury electroacoustic music. The idiosyncrasies of
tape-recording technology implied similar materialistic evaluations of sound. For Schaeffer and Cage,
the tape recorder is an instrument that creates the
acousmatic situation by enabling the composer to
extract sound from its source and the context from
within which it arises. Dysons analysis is interesting
because of the larger context in which she situates it.
In Chapter 4, by juxtaposing Schaeffers and Cages
use of tape recorders with Derridas thoughts on
tape-recording (as a trace of the voice, just as written text is a trace of speech), she further develops
the theory that machines which mediate sound are
overlooked by these composers conceptions of the
acousmatic situation, despite the fact that the
machines themselves help to generate this situation.
In other chapters, she interrogates technologies that distort relationships between sound and
listeners to create illusions of proximity and presence.
She reveals that such distortions imply grotesque
mutations of listeners bodies and sounds characteristics. In Lastronome she notes Artauds dissatisfaction
with radio microphones that filter out background
noise, thereby sanitizing and paralyzing life (p. 45).
A memorable passage describes similar phenomena
in other technologies: [t]he aural close-up in cinema,
for instance, assumes a listener with enormous ears,
while the audio recording, by automatically announcing
that the voice heard is both absent and past, re-presents
a phantom (p. 46). In Chapter 4, considering headphones and microphones, Dyson describes how these
aural illusions take on metaphysical significance, as
such technologies offered the opportunity to envisage
a new, technically augmented embodiment, one that
could occupy transcendent space (pp. 834). But, as
she suggests in a discussion of digital audio (Chapter 6),
the price of transcendent hearing is that, at least in
theory and conversation, machines and human bodies
become indistinguishable. Too often our conversations
overlook the fact that it is both the headphones and
our ears, as well as our subjectivities, that work together
to achieve enhanced hearing. In other words, in

Dyson, Sounding New Media

describing our experiences with headphones, microphones and digital sound, we talk as though the
amplified, reverberating, or otherwise processed sounds
come immediately to our ears. For example, when we
describe the piece Wind Whistling by Toshiya Tsunoda,
we may say, I hear the wind whistling through a pipe,
instead of Tsunoda offers a recorded, amplified and
electronically mediated rendition of an air current
moving through a pipe.
Dyson proposes (Chapter 3) that the notion of
unmediated media (p. 55) may have historical
precedents in the traditions underlying electroacoustic
music. She describes how, in a manner similar to the
telephone, Schaeffers concept of reduced listening
theoretically implies that listeners may make immediate
contact with sound in itself, if we have the help
of machines and the subjective will-power to eliminate various kinds of noise from what we hear.
For Schaeffer, Dyson implies, noise included the
individual perspectives that listeners bring to sound
and the meaningful implications we hear in sound.
Like the telephone, reduced listening theoretically
brings us into immediate proximity with sound in
itself, at the price of eliminating what individual
listeners bring to their sonic experiences. Dyson
identifies a similar problem in Cages theories which,
she believes, extolled chance at the expense of the
noise of personal choice. For those interested in the
roots of electroacoustic music, this chapter provides a
unique and thoughtful perspective.
For Dyson, noise becomes a theoretical representation of individuality, meaning, history, technology (including headphones, microphones and
digital processing) and anything else that mediates
our sonic experience. Our experience of sound is
never immediate, no matter how wed prefer to
think of it. Noise for Dyson is therefore a metaphor
for anything whether it is technology or her own
body that somehow comes between a listener and
what he or she hears. Instead of overlooking these
mediating aspects of our interactions with audio, we
should emphasise them in our creative and theoretical
discussions. In other words, Dyson proposes that
noise should become the dominant trope of audio
discourse, wherein it may function as a metaphor for
alterity or difference (pp. 1567).
Perhaps the most important contribution of Dysons
perceptive critique is her reminder to electroacoustic
artists that they should not take their equipment, the
individuality of their listeners, or other kinds of noise
for granted. When working with electronic and
mechanical equipment, it is so easy to get caught up in
creating the sonic illusions that give electroacoustic
music its identity, that set electroacoustic music apart
from any other genre: illusions such as those in Yann
Novaks installations, that the very room is made of
sound; in music by Steven Takasugi or Maryanne

285

Amacher, which gives listeners the impression that the

sounds come directly from inside their own heads. So
evocative are these effects and the experience of listening to them, that it is easier to immerse ourselves in
them than to think about the machines and individual
perspectives that create them. Not that we can or
should invariably listen from a critical point of view
but when we do discuss and create electroacoustic
work, we should not overlook the fact that machines
and subjectivities mediate the experience of sound. It is
tempting to argue that scholars and theorists will be
more prone than artists to such overlooking, or that
the problem at the heart of Dysons discussion is
merely a matter of language. However, as Dysons own
career as both an artist and a theorist evidences:
thought, discussion and creation of sound are not
mutually exclusive; and the use of creative methods is
not necessarily independent from the thoughtful critique of those methods. Moreover, as for language, the
way we treat sound of any kind depends to a significant
extent on what we call it. To call sound an object (as
in Schaeffers theories) or an immediate, immersive
environment (as in Dysons examples) is to treat sound
as an object or environment. Discursive or conversational issues thus relate directly to creative methods
and perspectives.
Sounding New Media will be a stimulating read for
scholars, aestheticians and enthusiasts of sound studies,
communication studies, musicology and art history, as
well as creators of electroacoustic music. Those interested in critical theory and interdisciplinary work will
find that Dyson engages with an impressive range of
perspectives. She contributes valuably to contemporary
music scholarship by demonstrating its intersections
with philosophy. Drawing on Derrida and Heidegger,
for instance, she relates silence, noise and voice to
writing, presence and difference. She also juxtaposes
her discussion of audio with investigations of the
foundational issues of new media studies: the posthuman condition, virtual reality and Artificial Life
(A-life). She draws on new media theories by Mark
Hansen, Brenda Laurel and N. Katherine Hayles, as
well as new media artworks by Char Davies and
Catherine Richards. From many scholars points of
view, we suspect, Dysons in-depth discussion of
Hayles influential theory of the posthuman, outlined
in her 1999 monograph How We Became Posthuman:
Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics, will be particularly exciting. We read Dysons
theoretical examination of headphones and cinematic
sound to suggest that the notion of a posthuman or
cybernetic body conflates the human and the technological, instead of clarifying the (noisy) differences
between them that lend variety to experience. As earlier
writings from artistthinkers (e.g. Cage, George Lewis,
Pauline Oliveros, Garth Paine, Schaeffer, Agnostino
Di Scipio, Dennis Smalley and many others) have

286 Book reviews

shown it to be fruitful for composers to think about

their works from theoretical points of view, it is also
constructive for theoretical perspectives to be grounded
in artistic practice. Sounding New Media is a book in
which depth and virtuosity of thought is accumulated
through not only thinking but also artistic practice.
We should point out that the organisation of Dysons
book may be counterintuitive to some. While we find
her thesis convincingly articulated, we regret that in her
otherwise compelling analyses of Davies and Richards
new media works she does not clarify precisely how
the linguistic issues she points out affect the artworks.
While it is something the perceptive reader is invited
to decipher by reading between the lines, Dyson does
not explicitly elucidate the connection between Davies
and Richards works and discussions of electroacoustic
sound.
Moreover, the meandering, far-reaching paths that
Dyson forges between theories, musical ideas and
new media artworks are far from streamlined;
instead, they are varied and nonlinear. But this
potential incoherence could be read as a deliberate
enactment of the noise metaphor that Dyson offers as
a model for thinking about sound and new media.
She writes: The a-periodicity of noise its randomness is not simply a metaphysical irritant waiting
for clarification; nor does it have an essential relationship with order and singularity (p. 188). As a
result, when seemingly disparate material is treated
by Dysons pen, productive patterns, tendencies and
alterities emerge and open up spaces for creative,
original thinking about sound, new media and the
posthuman condition. Sounding New Media allows
the noise, the productive frictions in the histories of
music, sound and new media studies to emerge, giving
rise to innovative insights.
Nina Sun Eidsheim
neidsheim@ucla.edu
Mandy-Suzanne Wong
mandywong@ucla.edu

Besides the translation given by the publisher, the

books title can also be translated as live, switched on
and, literally and thus ambiguously given the unusual
added space, under current. This new book raised
some questions that I hadnt considered beforehand.
When writing a book that is going to take on a
certain importance as it will be the first of its kind,
or at least the first spanning several decades of a
nations electroacoustic music history, it is vital to
consider for whom such a book is intended. What
level is assumed? In the case of electroacoustic music,
how much music analysis, how much detailed technological discussion should it contain and, last but
not least, how complete should it be?
Oskamps book is an easy and enjoyable read. The
author writes for a number of Dutch periodicals and
has a journalists touch. She lets on immediately that
technology is not going to be a focus, but does
inevitably discuss different types of apparatus and
even on occasion software and hardware developed in
Holland. Her artist profiles are very personal. I can
attest to their accuracy as a Dutch citizen and
someone who knows most of the people presented.
Other authors, particularly in other countries, might
have been less up-front about personalities and more
detailed regarding their musical content, the musicians performances and/or their significance.
She has decided to write for a general readership,
although now and then you have to be knowledgeable about certain aspects of contemporary musical
thought to be able to keep up. As I have described,
she only globally describes technology and even skips
some nice developments such as analogue modules
developed at the Institute for Sonology in Utrecht
before it moved to its current home in The Hague.
Some of these were fairly unique. Compositions such as
Jaap Vinks lovely Waves could not have been composed without them, and I actually had some purchased
for the studios at the University of Amsterdam (not
mentioned in the book) when they were built.
The author has attempted to cover a wide area
based on a modest structure. There are six sections
where inevitably things are bunched together, some
of which might equally easily be housed elsewhere.
Each includes a composer portrait. These are:
>

Jacqueline Oskamp, Onder Stroom: Geschiedenis van de

elektronische muziek in Nederland (Under Electric Charge:
A History of Electronic Music in The Netherlands).
Amsterdam: Ambo, 2011. 251 pp. ISBN 9-789026-323249.
doi:10.1017/S1355771811000343

>
>
>
>

>

Jacqueline Oskamps book is one of many that need

to be written. Many countries histories of electroacoustic music have yet to be published. Fortunately,
beyond this text, others are also in the planning stage.

Acoustic Music with Tape (Ton Bruyne`l)

Just Tape (Jan Boerman)
Conceptual Music (Dick Raaijmakers)
Live Electronic Music (Michel Waisvisz)
Sound Installations in Public Spaces (Edwin van
der Heide)
The Arrival of the Laptop (Anne La Berge)

You can notice the journalists touch looking at the

subtitle of a couple of the composers portraits. Jan
Boerman is a pioneer without influence, slightly