Monday 29 December 2008

audio culture: sonic drugs and sonic weapons





Infrasounds as sonic drugs: such mp3s are recently available to download via p2p or rather being sold as "Binaural Brainwave Doses" by I-Doser Labs. Many doubts remain on such commercial exploitations of binaural beats, as explained by media hoax fighter Paolo Attivissimo in this article.
The following is a very good survey on the subject of acoustic weapons by artist Alex Davies.

Acoustic Trauma - Infrasound and Sonic Weapons

Intro post: L I S T E N




As a percussionist I had been directly involved in the gradual insertion of everyday sounds into the concert hall, from Russolo through Edgard Varese and finally to John Cage where live street sounds were brought directly into the hall. I saw these activities as a way of giving aesthetic credence to these sounds – something I was all for. I began to question the effectiveness of the method, though. Most members of the audience seemed more impressed with the scandal of 'ordinary' sounds placed in a 'sacred' place than with the sounds themselves, and few were able to carry the experience over to a new perspective on the sounds of their daily lives.

I became interested in going a step further. Why limit listening to the concert hall? Instead of bringing these sounds into the hall, why not simply take the audience outside?

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