“It hits you, but you feel no pain – instead, pleasure. This is is the visceral
experience of audition, immersed in auditory volumes, swimming in a sea of
sound, between cliffs of speakers towering almost to the sky, sound stacked
upon sound”
Julian Hendriques – Thinking Through Sound
In the opening pages of the text Annie set for this lesson, Hendriques talks about audition in the dancehall space, through a sound system. This reminded me of Yassmin Foster, visitng lecturer from last year. Who’s work drew on the documentation of sound system culture and the experience of that system, also dance culture. With the aim to faithfully document to teach and preserve evolution of black culture. Transmission of ideas, concepts of heritage.
“Sonic bodies may be contrasted with light bodies in the way that audition
carries a corporeal weight – exemplified by the liminal extremes of the sonic
dominance sound system session – that vision has traditionally been used to
escape. Sonic bodies have to be heard, felt and given the attention of listening.
It is of little use looking for them. Sonic bodies demand being approached in
a certain way, one based on a relationship of mutual recognition and respect,
as distinct from the positivist scientific paradigm of prediction and control.” – Julian Hendriques
In previous post I was reflecting on the work of Hannah Wallis, speaking about the sensory experience of bass music. Ain Bailey’s Art installation “Version” had a loudspeaker area where low end bass could be felt in your body and through the floor. Sound affects the body through vibrations, in this passage of text Hendriques speaks about the weight of sound and how it is felt not only heard. In a lecture with Patrick Farmer for On Vibration (a course I have taken on), he spoke about how you can detect electromagnetic vibrations from the human body up to 10 metres away. – This is not evidence that we can detect presence from 10 metres, but its interesting to think that we omit some sort of field. Each body in a room with a sound system will subtly affect the acoustics of a space. We are all sonic bodies, experiencing and omitting sound and vibration.
During Lockdown, I would listen to NTS where showrunners would talk about missing the experience of human bodies and even the humidity of the dancefloor. It didn’t strike me at the time, but I believe this was following a line of thought similar to that of Hendriques, and stating that the significance of the dancefloor as this sensory space, not just music, but touch, humidity.. and the ‘experience of bodies’. Bodies create a significant ‘Affect’ that we did not get to experience in the stricter phases of this pandemic which now we are in the process of re-learning. In the last lecture we spoke about Constance Classen and visuo-centrism. Hendriques work shines light on the sensory experiences that are often considered ‘less than’ sight and sound. The soundsystem, and senses activated in these spaces create this all-encompassing sensory togetherness. Attention to sensory phenomena in this case gives credence to under-represented forms of music.