Reverberations

Noise permeates our highly mediated and globalised cultures. Noise as art, music, cultural or digital practice is a way of intervening so that it can be harnessed for an aesthetic expression not caught within mainstream styles or distribution.
This wide-ranging book examines the concept and practices of noise, treating noise not merely as a sonic phenomenon but as an essential component of all communication and information systems. The book opens with ideas of what noise is, and then works through ideas of how noise works in contemporary media, to conclude by showing potentials within noise for a continuing cultural renovation through experimentation. Considered in this way, noise is seen as an essential yet excluded element of contemporary culture that demands a rigorous engagement. Reverberations brings together a range of perspectives, case studies, critiques and suggestions as to how noise can mobilize thought and cultural activity through a heightening of critical creativity.Written by a strong, international line-up of scholars and artists, Reverberations looks to energize this field of study and initiate debates for years to come.

Dr Michael Goddard is Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Salford. He has published research in media and aesthetic theory, Eastern European film and visual culture and anomalous forms of popular music. Dr Ben Halligan runs the Graduate Programme for the School of Media, Music and Performance at the University of Salford, UK, teaching in the areas of Critical Theory, Media Studies and Performance at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Dr Halligan is currently involved with the University's move to MediaCityUK, and its new facilities with the BBC.

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Contributors' Biographical Notes Introduction. Michael Goddard, Benjamin Halligan and Paul Hegarty The Philosophy and Aesthetics of Noise 1. Paul Hegarty, 'A Chronic Condition: Noise and Time' 2. Scott Wilson, 'Amusia, Noise and the Drive' 3. Brian Massumi, 'Floating the Social: An Electronic Art of Noise' 4. Cecile Malaspina, 'The Noise Paradigm' 5. Dean Lockwood, 'Mongrel Vibrations: H. P. Lovecraft's Weird Ecology of Noise' 6. José Cláudio Castanheira, 'The Matter of Numbers: Sound and the Experience of Noise in Analog and Digital Models' Audiovisual Noise Practices 7. Benjamin Halligan, ' "As If From the Sky": Divine and Secular Dramaturgies of Noise' 8. Laura Wilson, 'Physical Spectatorship: Noise and Rape in Irreversible' 9. Robert Walker, 'Cinematic Tinnitus' 10. Daniel Cookney, 'Sshhh' 11. Rob Gawthrop, 'Thunder and Lightning: Noise, Aesthetics and Audio-visual Avant-garde Practice' 12. Felicity J. Colman, 'Sound Manifesto: Lee Ranaldo's Notes for Robert Smithson' Noise, Ethics and Politics 13. GegenSichKollectiv, 'Anti-Self: Experience-less Noise' 14. Marie Thompson, 'Music for Cyborgs: The Affect and Ethics of Noise Music' 15. Saeed Hydaralli, 'What is Urban Noise? An Inquiry into its Formal Properties' 16. Khadijah White, 'Considering Sound: Language, Meaning and the Construction of Noise' 17. Bruce Russell, 'Exploding the atmosphere: Realizing the revolutionary potential of "the last street song" ' Bibliography Index