Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear by Steve Goodman

Yesterday I saw Dr. Michael Goddard - one of the organisers of the Bigger Than Words, Wider Than Pictures conference. We actually met to discuss the PhD proposal I'm putting together with his help but we also chatted briefly about the upcoming event. There's some great stuff planned. We touched on my contribution and Michael suggested that I might be interested in reading a recent book by Steve Goodman titled Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear.

So I Googled it when I got home and realised that Steve Goodman is the same Steve Goodman that I actually know through his work with the Hyperdub label. There he's more noticeable as Kode 9 and, as label boss, is responsible for releasing groundbreaking music by the likes of Burial, Zomby, Flying Lotus, Martyn, Samiyam, Joker and more. In fact I interviewed him back in 2008 for something else.

What I didn't realise then is that the guy who has also pushed innovative electronic sounds via fanzines and club nights also has a very impressive academic career. With a PhD in philosophy he has apparently studied rave culture, cybernetics and postmodernism and now this book journeys through “philosophy, science, fiction, aesthetics, and popular culture, as he maps a (dis)continuum of vibrational force, encompassing police and military research into acoustic means of crowd control, the corporate deployment of sonic branding, and the intense sonic encounters of sound art and music culture”. A read then perhaps as heavy as one of his DJ sets.

Anyway, I've now got it on order from Amazon.

Available via the following link: Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear (Technologies of Lived Abstraction Series)

Herwig Weiser's electrochemical sound-modules

These are beautiful looking although, as a work in progress, I'm not really sure what their function is.

In any case, Herwig Weiser makes some arresting, sometimes highly conceptual, projects that use technology and, in some cases, sound. More via his site - http://www.zgodlocator.org/.

Center for Visual Music

Another link - Los Angeles' Center for Visual Music. That's here.

While my study is generally concerned with noise, music is going to be an important aspect if not just for the fact that there is already so much information regarding the visual depictions of music. I also picked up the Thames & Hudson book on synaesthesia today plus a few more that look at combinations of auditory and visual stimulus. Oh, and I found the Center for Visual Music site while researching John Cage's work in fusing sound with art. It also looks like the theories employed by painters like Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky [below] might have some bearing on the research too.