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Vadim Keylin: Things to Do with Sound: Towards a Pragmatist Aesthetics of Listening and Soundmaking

Aesthetic Seminar

Info about event

Time

Thursday 5 December 2019,  at 14:15 - 17:00

The understanding of sound as the object of listening has dominated sound studies and sound aesthetics ever since the invention of the phonograph shifted the focus from the voice to the ear, from production to perception. However, in the past century, a plethora of new soundmaking practices emerged – from sound synthesis to beatboxing, from interactive sound installations to autotuned cat videos – that demand to reconsider the dominance of listening-centered epistemologies in the sound discourse. The lecture attempts to sketch a pragmatist theory of sound – one that emphasizes the proactive, expressive and creative aspects of sound culture – by revisiting John Dewey’s aesthetics. Dewey envisioned the aesthetic experience as proceeding in cycles of doing and undergoing, which manifest in equal measure both in the production and the reception of art. Drawing on actor-network theory, media theory and creativity studies, as well as a number of artistic practices, the lecture explores how the dialectics of doing and undergoing – soundmaking and listening – suffuses contemporary sound art and culture.

The seminar is public, and we welcome everybody. 

Programme: Aesthetic Seminar Autumn 2019