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ABSTRACT similarities popular inthe imagination: many share toxins these that notes Bijsterveld Karin laws, and odors are often linked. In her sounds history of noxious noise abatementthat given instructive, is smog with noise of comparison The unavoidable. largely least, at dwellers “there,”somethingdeleterious toone’s but, health for urban are hard to relate in termsthat of direct causation. ways “Noise” in is just albeit living, urban with correlated and fects ef- noxious of degrees in measurable toxin, environmental an is noise smog, with As [1]. everywhere” people of health the to hazard a considered be must Noise inconvenience. Sound asserted that “calling noise a nuisance is like calling smog an In 1978, former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. William H. Stewart Toxi sonic ecologicalsustainability. canindicateanewmodeof López suggestthatthisnaturalperversity is, in fact, unnatural. The field recordings of Chris Watson and Francisco nature, butecologicalthoughtofthepastdecadesuggeststhatnature Composer R.MurraySchafercontraststhistoxinwithasustaining societies andisdifficulteithertocontainorevendefineprecisely. tend topostulatenoiseasatoxinthatisproducedbyourindustrial pollution areaconcreteembodiment.Thediscoursesofnoise Sound isapoliticalquestionofwhichtheantagonismsnoise Soundscape in theContemporary of Sound:T N ©2015 ISAST ©2015 a noise is a social difference: sound and melodious between difference the reek, ungodly files associatedwiththisissueofLMJ. foraudio,videoandothersupplementary See
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They are smelly and noisy, while t oxicity, N ature andCulture determining its source and the concomitant difficulty in istic that unites odor and noise: Specifically,the in difficulty we are clean and quiet. However, there is a further character- be, itbe, is acontamination or plague. public awareness campaigns. In short, whatever noise might to recalcitrant as and smoke tobacco as dangerous as tion, pollu- of form a is noise Thus, pathologies. social and ioral is “noise,” and whatever it is, it leads to physiological, behav- from a medical wepaper; are only given the sense that there expect might we that details effects, these produce sound?) infra/ultra- sounds? repetitive sounds? (high-pitched noise cal impairment [5]. We are not given a sense of what kinds of emotional disturbances, negative behaviorsocial and physi- disturbances, cardiovascular sleep disturbances, [4], psychological reaction” and stress and relationships interpersonal capacity,disturbed working decreased misunderstandings, irritation, self-confidence, uncertainty,offatigue, lack tion, concentra- with “problems impairment, hearing exposure: Plague” ern noteeffects of pathologicalprolonged the noise AMod- Pollution: “Noise of authors the Thus, effects. cal noise), focusing on noise understood in its phenomenologi- haveofforgonenoise essence ontological questionsthe (on conceptualize attemptsto this, of Because concept. own its of excess in even delimitation, of excess in always is noise that fact the against up running fruitless, prove to tended have noise of definition objective quantifiable, a determine to Attempts particularities. listeners’ on dependent enon phenom- subjective a noise renders sound,”wanted which the Western Medieval period, noise has been defined as “un- scientific and engineering strategiesthat attempt to limit it. manage [3]. them Noise as pollution exceeds legal, political, to attempts overwhelming circumstances a of story” is “tragic Bijsterveld, to according regulation, noise of history the failure; of one protection—is hearing concerning tions levels or workplace safety regula- decibel airport and traffic exposure to noise—including of laudable effects ordinances harmful restricting potentially the regulate and quantify to attemptsBijsterveld’sawayIndeed, the ofgo . analysisit ing To what degree is this a question of noise as such? Since such? as noise of question a this is Todegree what LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, V ol. 25,pp. 5–8,2015 mak-
5 Tht e U opia of Natural Sound while machine-made substitutes are providing the operative This is certainly the position held by Canadian composer signals directing modern life” [14]. The creation of this syn- R. Murray Schafer of the World Soundscape Project. Scha- thetic soundscape denatures nature. fer’s rhetoric is bellicose: “Today, as the machines whirl in This last point might be best refined through a detour the hearts of our cities day and night, destroying, erect- through some contemporary developments in ecological ing, destroying, the significant battleground of the modern thought, in which the concept of nature as such has come un- world has become the neighbourhood Blitzkrieg” [6]. This der scrutiny. Anthony Paul Smith’s Ecologies of Nature, which blitzkrieg is, for Schafer as for noise abatement activists, a imbricates ecological science, theologians Thomas Aquinas sociopolitical problem: “The general acoustic environment and Abû Sulaymân al-Sijistânî and the philosophers Spinoza of a society can be read as an indicator of social conditions and François Laruelle, demonstrates that there are at least which produce it and may tell us much about the trending two ways in which Nature has been “weaponized” and is in and evolution of that society” [7]. This social situation is a need of “decommissioning” [15]—as indicated in the work of consequence of the industrialization of society: “The sound Timothy Morton, for whom nature is a “transcendent term” sewer is much more likely to result when a society trades that “wavers between the divine and the natural” [16], and its ears for eyes, and it is certain to result when this is ac- as noted by Bruno Latour, for whom the concept of nature companied by an impassioned devotion to machines” [8]. secures a fundamentally undemocratic politics by making it In contrast to the sound sewer resulting from mechaniza- “possible to recapitulate the hierarchy of beings in a single tion, Schafer waxes lyrical about the wonders of the natural ordered series” [17]. For his own part, Smith argues that soundscape: Water, winds, the sounds appropriate to the four “while ecology as a science may not require the philosophical seasons are described with judicious citations from an im- concept of nature to function, nature is still a ‘good name’ ” pressive range of literary resources. That Schafer’s stance is [18]. Nature is not the name of a transcendence, nor is it an profoundly conservative has not escaped notice; musician ordering system overdetermining its subjects; rather, it is the David Toop dismisses Schafer’s desire for “an Edenic state of nomination of an immanence, an always already “there” that pure, permanent quietude” [9], and Steve Goodman, in his exceeds attempts to delimit it. As the title of the first chapter Sonic Warfare, is even more damning: of Ecologies of Thought puts it: “Nature Is Not Hidden, but Perverse.” In its immanence, nature is radically present in The politics of silence often assumes a conservative guise its manifestations (as per Dewdney, both lichen and vinyl), and promotes itself as a quasi-spiritual and nostalgic return whether these manifestations are dependent on the produc- to the natural. As such, it is often orientalized and roman- tive (as well as destructive) forces of weather, genetics, geol- ticizes the tranquillity unviolated by the machinations of ogy or technology. The distinction between a natural event technology, which have militarized the sonic and polluted (e.g. a rainstorm or bird migration) and a technological the rural soundscape with noise, polluted art with sonifica- event (e.g. the building of a nuclear power station or an elec- tion, polluted the city with industry, polluted attention with trical grid) loses its conceptual cogency, since nature names marketing, deafens teenagers and so on. Its disposition is what is immanent in both, an immanence that never is where almost always reactionary [10]. it is expected and never does the work we think it will do. Against the purity of nature, the contamination of mo- While space does not permit more complete discussion of dernity: It does not seem to interest Schafer that living next Smith’s resourceful and complex text, we can at least note that to a waterfall might expose one to decibel levels comparable if nature does not have the sort of transcendent qualities that to living next to a highway—natural sounds are to be valued proponents of the natural soundscape assert that it does, then precisely because they are natural: “Let nature speak with its the term synthetic soundscape requires recalibration [19]. own authentic voices” [11]. Specifically, where this term has denoted natural sounds “be- coming increasingly unnatural” (either through schizopho- Det na uralized Nature nia or through their subsumption into the soundscapes of the In contrast to the above, we might usefully juxtapose the technological landscape), we can now assert that there is no Canadian poet Christopher Dewdney’s provocation: “Vinyl “becoming unnatural” for natural sounds: Nature is, qua its is as natural as lichen” [12]. There is no reason to note that perversity, always already unnatural. Here, the work of sound city noises are necessarily “toxic” in a way that natural sounds artists Francisco López and Chris Watson is exemplary. In would not be. What Dewdney’s remark emphasizes is that the following sections of this paper, I explore two works in the framing of sounds of, say, urban density as toxic because particular: Watson’s 2013 release In St. Cuthbert’s Time [20] of their source is an illegitimate move insofar as the putative and López’s 1997 long work La Selva [21]. Both works are toxicity of a sound is related not to its essential origin but field recordings of environmental, nonhuman sounds: the to its effects on organisms. However, the suturing of sound to sounds of Lindisfarne Island off the Northumberland coast its source is vital to Schafer; the condition in which this does (Watson) and the rainy seasons in the tropical lowlands of not occur, the “splitting of sounds from their original con- Costa Rica (López). These sounds are not conspicuously ma- texts” [13], is a schizophonic situation, an aberrant condition nipulated; there is no indication of varispeed, layering, the that results in the development of “a synthetic soundscape in addition of delay or compression, etc. (They are, admittedly, which natural sounds are becoming increasingly unnatural almost certainly equalized to ensure playback fidelity, and
6 Kohut, Noise Pollution and the Eco-Politics of Sound
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LMJ_a_00924 by guest on 01 October 2021 editing has of course been done—one can scarcely produce, busy, if not noisy, soundscape; even during the quieter mo- let alone listen to, a 3-month piece of sound.) Thus, these ments, there are at least four or five sonic events occurring. works, while certainly a development of musique concrète, Another important feature to emphasize is the difficulty in do not rest easily in that genre. Furthermore, while musique identifying the precise nature of the sounds that we hear. This concrète, e.g. Pierre Schaeffer’s 1948Étude aux chemins de fer may be more than a question of my admitted unfamiliar- [22], regarded itself as the construction of sound objects, that ity with the Costa Rican rainforest; at the 27:35 moment, for is, as a means of composition and construction using sound example, a rumbling bass drone (rare enough to be noted as as a waiting-to-be-formed medium, the question of the art of an exception) seems to be produced by no “natural” agency field recordings (or, rather, the culture of nature) as practiced imaginable, human, environmental, animal or insect. in the pieces under discussion requires elucidation. How do these pieces work as a cultural/natural ecology? Both works foreground their natural, or more precisely, their Nate ur —Cultures of Sound nonhuman, origin. But there is still the question of culture Watson’s In St. Cuthbert’s Time comprises four sections cor- here: Watson refers to his works as “sonic portraits,” sug- responding to the seasons (Winter, Lechten, Sumor and Hae gesting that the locus of attention, i.e. the listener’s ear, is fest, as per Old English) and was commissioned by Durham mobile in a way similar to the eye’s movement across the University to accompany its exhibition of the early-8th- surface of a painting. López, a more gregarious artist than century Lindisfarne Gospel produced by the monks on the Watson in many ways, refers to the “transcendental dimen- eponymous island. (The island is also known for the her- sion of the sound matter by itself,” which manifests an “inner mit St. Cuthbert, whose tenure was contemporaneous with world of sound itself” [24]. This is a crucial difference, from the writing and illumination of the Gospel manuscript. St. two perspectives. First, as regards the works in and of them- Cuthbert is known for his connection to birds, making him selves: On the one hand, sound, for Watson, is a medium of a striking point of interest when considered alongside Wat- representation, a painting that at the very least evokes the son’s recordings of birdsong, which go back to the early 1980s sonic lifeworld of 8th-century Lindisfarne and, by implica- [23].) As for the recording itself, Watson was given the in- tion, the psychological features of the hermits and monks struction to provide a sonic portrait of the environment as it occupying that time and space. López, on the other hand, ex- would have been experienced by the monks and hermit of the plicitly rejects representation: “La Selva (the musical piece) is 8th century, and indeed, with the exception of some distant not a representation of La Selva (the reserve in Costa Rica).” bells ringing in the middle of “Winter” and at the melancholy La Selva is a composition of “sound matter.” While we may close of “Haefest,” we are in a hermit’s soundscape: birds and (or may not) identify a particular sound as insect or avian, other mammals, wind and water, but no sign of human pres- wind or water, the point is not the representational feature ence. Birdcalls, as befits a work dedicated to St. Cuthbert, of the sounds but rather their compositional construction predominate, but each of the four sections/movements of In as a physical medium in a delimited multiplicity. This is why St. Cuthbert’s Time are quite distinct: “Winter” is dominated López can assert that “I consider La Selva to be a piece of mu- by the constant sound of wind; “Lechten” brings the sound sic, in a very strong and profound sense of the word.” Thus, of flowing water to the foreground; and birds are almost the in Watson’s case, we have a “portrait,” and in López’s case, only sound source for “Sumor.” “Haefest” is in many ways we have a piece of composed music whose representational the most complex of the soundscapes offered here; rather qualities point directly to itself as a medium. than any identifiable sonic signature, we encounter a palpable The second crucial difference, which has to do with the absence akin to that of a sudden pressure drop or the room role of the listener in this assemblage of sound, technology tone picked up when recording an empty space. As the piece and ecology, arises at this point. We have noted the mobility comes to an end, we hear the distant sound of waves lapping afforded to the listener ofIn St. Cuthbert’s Time: as listeners, against a shore while birdcalls and the occasional flapping of we contract and dilate our attention on particular moments, wings combine with almost inaudible bells. with the repetitions of birdcalls etc. allowing us to revisit In contrast with the minimalism of In St. Cuthbert’s Time, these particular sonic events in different contexts. Further- La Selva is one continuously dense piece, beginning with a more, the natural reverb and low frequencies captured by harsh, metallic avian/insect drone at (relatively) high vol- Watson’s recording (as much a question of technical exper- ume. Throughout, there is considerable treble and, again tise as anything) provide a proprioceptive sense of distance in contrast to Watson, little by way of bass frequency. The and proximity, which amplifies the impression of being in a impression is one of an absence of background, an absence specific spatial location. In contrast, the buzzing trebles ofLa rectified about 11 minutes into the piece, when the sound of Selva make it much harder for listeners to locate themselves rain on leaves and the ground provides a contextual frame in the context of the piece. Indeed, there are times when lis- for the rainforest bird and insect trills. In fact, for the next teners might be given the impression that the actual physical hour or so, the relation between sonic foreground (event) properties of the sounds have been transmuted by López’s and background (context) oscillates: A sound that starts off craft into an undifferentiated magma—the “sound matter” as a faint background detail will eventually come to the fore itself, which is structured into nonrepresentational forms. and dominate the aural space before dropping off suddenly. This is achieved at the expense of a certain degree of bass In addition to this dynamism, La Selva is also an extremely and reverb; the foregrounded sounds, in this piece at least,
Kohut, Noise Pollution and the Eco-Politics of Sound 7
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LMJ_a_00924 by guest on 01 October 2021 are rendered with such clarity that they seem at times to be constitute a social problem; clearly, workplace ordinances excised from their environment. Thus, the ecology developed concerning hearing protection on the factory floor, for ex- in La Selva is entirely one of López’s design, where Watson’s ample, are important bulwarks against worker exploitation. soundscape situates, through proprioceptive reverberation, However, the danger that we have illuminated in the discus- the listener in the space and time evoked. sion of noise-abatement rhetoric is the postulation of some pristine, preindustrial utopia of sonic anti-toxins from “Na- Conu cl sion ture” that counteract our self-induced contamination. The In her book The Soundscape of Modernity, Emily Thompson work of Watson and López manifests something about the notes that the architectural priorities for the new concert essence of “the soundscape” highlighted by Thompson: halls and other performance venues of the early 20th cen- A soundscape is simultaneously a physical environment tury included a suppression of naturally reverberant space. and a way of perceiving that environment; it is both a world Thompson interprets this as the technocratic control of the and a culture constructed to make sense of the world. . . . (sonic) environment: “Modern architecture was founded A soundscape, like a landscape, ultimately has more to do upon an ideology of environmental control, and acoustical with civilization than with nature, and, as such, it is con- materials transformed this ideology into architectural real- stantly under construction and always undergoing change ity” [25]. The perceived need for listeners to control their [27]. sonic environment was connected to “new worries about noise, as traditionally bothersome sources of sound like ani- We should, then, pay attention to the implications of In St. mals, peddlers and musicians were increasingly drowned Cuthbert’s Time and La Selva: The development of a sustain- out by the technological crescendo of the modern city” [26]. able ecology of sound must ground itself in the perversity of And thus we return to the question of noise pollution. At (our embeddedness in) nature; sonic ecology, for which noise absolutely no point do I intend to suggest that the environ- pollution remains a concern, must become not a question of mental effects of sounds produced by human beings do not conservation or stewardship but one of invention.
References and Notes 17 Bruno Latour, Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into De- mocracy, Catherine Porter, trans. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. 1 Quoted in Lisa Goines and Louis Hagle, “Noise Pollution: A Modern Press, 2004) p. 25. Plague,” Southern Medical Journal 100, No. 3 (2007) p. 287. 18 Smith [15] p. 157. 2 Karin Bijsterveld, Mechanical Sound: Technology, Culture and Public Problems of Noise in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA: MIT 19 For a full discussion of Smith’s text, see the An und für sich book Press, 2008) p. 17. event available at
9 David Toop, Ocean of Sound: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imagi- 24 Francisco López, “Environmental Sound Matter,” 8 Kohut, Noise Pollution and the Eco-Politics of Sound Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LMJ_a_00924 by guest on 01 October 2021