7/19/2023 0 Comments Petrify etymologyLike the frame of a stereoscope, a subwoofer enclosure presents a perceived singularity from an inherent plurality. The sound waves from each end also deviate in direction, the enclosure is meant to negate, reduce, at the service of producing a deceptively singular sound. The subwoofer enclosure is then meant to muffle the back of the driver, countering the would-be distortion if front and back were to project freely. The sound generated by the front and rear-end phase each other out. This Listening That I Give as Well as Through Which I Take 4Ī subwoofer enclosure-usually wooden, box-like-is meant to separate the front end of the speaker driver with the rearward-facing end of the speaker driver. What could a “Deep Listening” of the sirens sound like? “An Phantom Voices” is an exercise in insertion, an air-borne intervention. Or of any sound-the responses elicited, or expected by them-also alert us to histories of foregone consensus. Nation states have a way of reminding us of the ground we stand on, of the command they have over us, mostly through language, other times rhetorique, but also through sound. How high can language float? Here (Arnhem, the Netherlands), there are monthly sirens that draw a sonic signature in the air, echoing onto our bodies. They are marooned on islands and petrify men with their “seductive” singing. In Greek mythology sirens are women, who were cursed to become creatures half human, half bird. However, when looking at the etymology, it turns out, what echoes in the word isĪ deeply embedded fear of the female voice. When the siren goes off, we are expected to be alert, to escape peril, or stand still. Take the word “siren”-in many languages signifying the same: a warning in the form of sound. We hope to explore the liminal space of reading as writing, listening as speaking, when the voice performs both externally expected language and internally provoked utterances-to unsettle the idea of a “shared language.” “Listening to everything, rather than just speech” 1 could lead to something like a deconstruction of the domesticated voice, the linear text, which could also provoke a new perception of reading.Īllowing a justified text to be complicated by our own references, situational biases and mental leaps while reading, makes way for non-linear narratives to evolve and reproduce. However, we cannot erase the biographical textures interwoven in a text when we read aloud. These other layers are often overheard, since our idea of listening is attuned to our idea of reading, constantly “making sense” of words as part of a shared language, that is to say, of a culturally and nationally charged system of codes. So, when we speak, we express much more than what we mean to say. Voice, as an immediate medium for language, physically resonates-those who are deaf know best that perceiving sound means touch, means feeling vibration-connecting us to our bodies and their experiences, because voice is infected, not only by our mother tongues but through countless socio-political linguistic markers. When to breathe? In silence, we in- and exhale paragraphs without getting thirsty. To read aloud means to become bodily involved with text again. When we learn to read, we unlearn to involve our voice. And Phantom Vices, And Phoned Myself, I’m Inventing This Is,
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