The "Symptomatic Act" circa 1900: Hysteria, Hypnosis, Electricity, Dance

McCarren, Felicia

doi:10.1086/448773

Cited by 25 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…In all cases, the domes are designed to be unenclosed and thus acoustically transparent, enabling the inhabitant to experience the soundscape beyond the playing loudspeakers (ideally a park or other outdoor public space) as an extension of that presented by the dome itself; indeed, sounds from loudspeakers may be indistinguishable from those coming from beyond. Thus, while the dome provides a sense of enclosure and safety, it is paradoxically designed to encourage a much wider awareness of space (and place), affording the listener an experience akin to Mallarmé’s notion of ‘transparent prolongation’ (McCarren 1995: 756–7): a listening- through of the constructed land(sound)scape into the already-there.…”

Section: Case Study: Gridsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acousmatic Approaches to the Construction of Image and Space in Sound Art

Batchelor

2015

Org. Sound

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This article considers ideas of image and space as they apply to acousmatic music and to sound art, establishing overlaps and compatibilities which are perhaps overlooked in the current trend to consider these two genres incompatible. Two issues in particular are considered: compositional (especially mimesis and the construction of image, and what shall be termed ‘ephemeral narrative’) and presentational (in particular multichannel speaker deployment). While exploring several relevant works within this discussion, by way of a case study the article introduces the author’s GRIDs project – a series of four multichannel sound sculptures united in their arrangement in geometric arrays of many (in some cases potentially hundreds of) loudspeakers. These permit, by virtue of being so massively (and geometrically) multichannel, the generation of extremely intricate spatial sound environments – fabricated landscapes – that emerge directly from an acousmatic compositional aesthetic. Owing to their alternative means of presentation and presentation contexts, however, they offer very different experiences from those of acousmatic music encountered in the concert hall. So the latter part of this article explores the various ways in which the listener might engage with constructed image space within these sound sculptures, along with the relationship of the audio content of each with its visual and situational setup – that is, its environment.

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Section: Case Study: Gridsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acousmatic Approaches to the Construction of Image and Space in Sound Art

Batchelor

2015

Org. Sound

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“…All of the above works discreetly encourage a switch from public (non-audience) to audience through the concurrent switch from Truax's designated ‘distracted listening’ to a state of ‘listening-in-search’ (2001: 79). Perhaps this is a kind of ‘transparent prolongation’ as proposed by Mallarmé – a listening-through (or more accurately a listening-beyond/after) of the aural event, and an opening up of the imagination (or consciousness) to what lies beyond (McCarren 1995: 756–7). Equally, just as with liminal's work (and agendas) discussed above, the revelation of the illusion draws attention to the listening experience , and thus, once again, to the ‘act of listening itself’.…”

Section: Lowercase and Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lowercase Strategies in Public Sound Art: celebrating the transient audience

Batchelor

2013

Org. Sound

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Public art invariably involves the drawing of individuals into the roles of audience and participant by virtue of it being in the public domain – in public places where those individuals are getting on with their everyday lives. As such, a large proportion of the ‘audience’ is an unwitting one, subjected to the art rather than subscribing to it. This is equally true of public sound art, where response to an intervention may vary from engagement to non-engagement to indifference to unawareness, along with a variety of transitional states between. This essay seeks to investigate this ambiguous territory in public sound art, proposing it both as an area rich in possibility for creative exploration and as a means by which artists may reveal and encourage sensitivity to the existing characteristics of a site (thus accommodating the pursuit of agendas relating to acoustic ecology). In particular it investigates and presents a case for the use of lowercase strategies in sound art as ways in which the public might be invited into a dialogue with works (invitation rather than imposition) and thus empowered as partakers of public sound art.

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“…The critic and aesthetician Eduard Hanslick, for instance, was scathing, comparing belief in music’s electrical curative powers to Professor Goldberger’s galvano-electric rheumatism chains. 67…”

Section: Electric Music In Music Criticismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stimulating Music: The Pleasures and Dangers of “Electric Music,” 1750–1900

Kennaway¹

2011

con

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Far from being a purely modern idea, the notion of “electric music” was already common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The shift in thinking about music from cosmic harmony to nervous stimulation made metaphors and speculative theories relating music and electricity irresistible. This essay considers the development of the idea of electric music, looking at its associations with a sexual “body electric.” It will then examine how this conception of music went from being the subject of sympathy to becoming part of a medical critique of music as a dangerous stimulant, with echoes in music criticism and beyond.

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The "Symptomatic Act" circa 1900: Hysteria, Hypnosis, Electricity, Dance

Cited by 25 publications

References 0 publications

Acousmatic Approaches to the Construction of Image and Space in Sound Art

Acousmatic Approaches to the Construction of Image and Space in Sound Art

Lowercase Strategies in Public Sound Art: celebrating the transient audience

Stimulating Music: The Pleasures and Dangers of “Electric Music,” 1750–1900

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