Sonic things: knowledge formation in flux

Abstract

This Introduction presents the key concerns of "Sonic Things: knowledge formation in flux," a Special Issue of Sound Studies. Building on recent scholarship in sound studies, history of science, and thing studies, we use the term "sonic things" to describe sounds that stand in for other-elusive, inaudible, or ideal-sounds. Emerging from long processes of multidisciplinary knowledge production, sonic things equally have a quality in and of themselves. The Special Issue's contributions deal with the histories of sonic things that mediate between physical and metaphysical realms (Leendert van der Miesen, John Durham Peters); the sounds of musical instruments used to reach out to other times or places (Fanny Gribenski, Carmel Raz); and sonic things that moved back and forth between domestic spaces and sites of scientific inquiry (Viktoria Tkaczyk, Tiago de Oliveira Pinto, Flora Dennis). To trace these diverse trajectories, the contributors employ and re-evaluate a plethora of methods, from intellectual history and the history of reception and misconception, to discourse analysis, to the reconstruction of historical instruments and experiments. They speak to readers in a wide range of research fields, offering new perspectives on existing debates and new views on an ample body of historical sources.

Information from sound: exploring sounds and listening in information practices research

“…Despite this lack of attention, information practices perspectives challenging binaries such as between bodies/technologies and physical/immaterial (e.g., Costello and Floegel, 2021) and the increasing literature focused on sensory and embodied information experiences (Savolainen, 2020) may provide grounding for expanding understandings of sound and listening in information practices research. This conceptual paper thus suggests the value of exploring information practices around sound/listening in a broader sense: beyond the explicitly oral/verbal or musical, with attention to the range of actors implicated in the creation and use of various types of sonic things (Tkaczyk and van der Miesen, 2020), and building from the growth of sound-related research in other disciplines. Given the variety and the range of applications of knowledge produced through the various academic, professional, and creative practices engaging such broader conceptualisations of sound, information practices research may play an important role in widening understandings around how information is sought, created, used, and shared in and across these domains.…”