VIDEOGRAM 108

SONIC TURN: "SOUND STUDIES" AND THE OTHER HISTORY

It is hard to imagine scientific research without the use of pictures, graphs, and diagrams; Western culture has been repeatedly characterised as visual since the invention of the printing press; we are likely to believe what we have seen "with our own eyes". But is there knowledge that we can only gain through specific listening techniques? Does hearing have a history of its own? Can we study sound before the era of its technological reproduction? In my talk, I will introduce “sound studies” as a field of interdisciplinary historical research and explain how and why to engage with the history of sound and hearing. I will show, for example, how the study of indigenous cultures in Papua New Guinea has contributed to a better understanding of the history of European science, explain what "historical hearing" and the cultural history of the senses are, and show what the study of hearing and acoustics reveals about the formation of modern science and culture at the intersection of natural, social and artistic disciplines. I will present the history of sound as an alternative history of modernity, using examples from the context of the European Reformation, 19th century physiology, acoustic ecology, and research of "voice prints".

24.11.2021, 19:00, online

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