Sound Research for Troubling Times - Hope In Crisis

This edited collection takes the prompt "hope in crisis" as a starting point for investigating sound research as it is situated in these troubling times. The book brings together thinkers from numerous scholarly domains (i.e. communication studies, art education, creative art therapy, psychology and philosophy) to explore the question of hope as it relates to sonic research-creation practices in/and times of crisis. Some of the prompts and provocations explored by the authors within the collection include, but are not limited to: explorations of sonic research-creation practices as they are situated within contemporary convergence of crises; theoretical investigations of the concept of hope as it relates to sonic temporalities, ontologies, and epistemologies; articulations of experimental sonic pedagogies; examinations of hope as it plays out in institutional settings and/or sound and music scenes (i.e. music education, artistic communities, activist communities); investigations of experimental listening practices as they relate to contemporary crises; explorations of post-human, non-human, and inhuman sonic resonances in research-creation practices; and experimental practices that deploy sound and sonic approaches for emergent, collective research both within, but also outside of, academic institutions. Positioned as a material that holds the potential to frustrate common approaches to research, whether through its refusal of occularcentric perspectives, its leaky data protocols or its distortion of future horizons, sound is explored here as that which might counter the default refrains that have pushed hope itself into crisis. Importantly, while sound research is explored in this book in relation to hope, it is not offered up as a better way forward, nor is it presented as a solution. Sound research is instead posed as a question, with each author responding in their own way through experiments with the potentials, but also limits, of and for sonic practices. Central to the project, then, is the question of how to collectively and creatively respond to the increasingly difficult- even untenable-circumstances that have come to limit future possibilities, both within fields of research but also beyond, without falling back on the unquestioned assumption that hope alone will actualize a desired otherworld. The sound research gathered here experiments with such possibilities in order to grapple with how present conditions, including conditions for research, are always contingent-always already in trouble-and thus also subject to change both conceptually and materially.

List of contents

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.- CHAPTER 2: Hope as Very Low Frequency Practice (A Side): Listening as Being-With Uncertainty.- CHAPTER 3: Hope as Very Low Frequency Practice (Side B): Listening as Longing to Be Undone.- CHAPTER 4: Hospicing Hope in Education: Swansongs, Sustainability, and a Pedagogical Ethic of Listening.- CHAPTER 5: What do I Hear, and How do I listen? Thinking with Sound on the Lachine Canal.- CHAPTER 6: Extremity, Hope, and Sound in the Colonial Experience.- CHAPTER 7: Musicking as a Radical Act of Hope: An Arts-Based Theoretical Reflection.- CHAPTER 8: "Back to 1999:" Exploring Speculative Nostalgia with Hyperpop.- CHAPTER 9: Nothing, But Hope: A Conversation.- CHAPTER 10. Weird Horizons: Sound Research at the Sonic Brink.

About the author

jessie beier (PhD) is a teacher, artist, researcher, philosopher, and conjurer of weird pedagogies for unthought futures. She is an Assistant Professor in Art Education at Concordia University (Montréal) and author of the book Pedagogy at the End of the World: Weird Pedagogies for Unthought Educational Futures (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023). jessie’s artistic practice deploys sonic, video, textual, illustrated, and relational elements to stage speculative scenarios and immersive, site-specific installations.
Owen Chapman (PhD) is a composer, DJ, and researcher. He is a Professor in Communication Studies at Concordia University (Montréal) and his writings have appeared in publications including the Canadian Journal of Communication, Esse, Media-N, and Organised Sound. His audio work involves live performance and electronic composition and has been featured internationally in video soundtracks, media workshops, site-specific installations, as well as solo and group performances.

Summary

This edited collection takes the prompt “hope in crisis” as a starting point for investigating sound research as it is situated in these troubling times. The book brings together thinkers from numerous scholarly domains (i.e. communication studies, art education, creative art therapy, psychology and philosophy) to explore the question of hope as it relates to sonic research-creation practices in/and times of crisis. Some of the prompts and provocations explored by the authors within the collection include, but are not limited to: explorations of sonic research-creation practices as they are situated within contemporary convergence of crises; theoretical investigations of the concept of hope as it relates to sonic temporalities, ontologies, and epistemologies; articulations of experimental sonic pedagogies; examinations of hope as it plays out in institutional settings and/or sound and music scenes (i.e. music education, artistic communities, activist communities); investigations of experimental listening practices as they relate to contemporary crises; explorations of post-human, non-human, and inhuman sonic resonances in research-creation practices; and experimental practices that deploy sound and sonic approaches for emergent, collective research both within, but also outside of, academic institutions. Positioned as a material that holds the potential to frustrate common approaches to research, whether through its refusal of occularcentric perspectives, its leaky data protocols or its distortion of future horizons, sound is explored here as that which might counter the default refrains that have pushed hope itself into crisis. Importantly, while sound research is explored in this book in relation to hope, it is not offered up as a better way forward, nor is it presented as a solution. Sound research is instead posed as a question, with each author responding in their own way through experiments with the potentials, but also limits, of and for sonic practices. Central to the project, then, is the question of how to collectively and creatively respond to the increasingly difficult— even untenable—circumstances that have come to limit future possibilities, both within fields of research but also beyond, without falling back on the unquestioned assumption that hope alone will actualize a desired otherworld. The sound research gathered here experiments with such possibilities in order to grapple with how present conditions, including conditions for research, are always contingent—always already in trouble—and thus also subject to change both conceptually and materially.

Product details

• Assisted by: Jessie Beier (Editor), Jessie L. Beier (Editor), Chapman (Editor), Owen Chapman (Editor), jessie l beier (Editor)
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 06.11.2024
• EAN: 9783031694042
• ISBN: 978-3-0-3169404-2
• No. of pages: 254
• Dimensions: 148 mm x 18 mm x 210 mm
• Weight: 447 g
• Illustrations: XVI, 254 p. 30 illus., 27 illus. in color.
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Music; Gesellschaft und Kultur, allgemein, Medienwissenschaften, Music, Politik der National- Zentral- oder Bundesregierung, Listening, auseinandersetzen, HOPE, Social Justice, Media Policy and Politics, Sound Studies, non-human, Post-human