Beyond Unwanted Sound: Noise, Affect and Aesthetic Moralism

Abstract

Noise is so often a ‘stench in the ear’ – an unpleasant disturbance or a… But there is much more to noise than what greets the ear as unwanted sound. Weaving together affect theory with technical descriptions, philosophical accounts, acoustic ecology and a range of noises – from disruptive neighbours to the music of Maria Chavez – Beyond Unwanted Sound critiques both the conservative politics of silence and transgressive poetics of noise, each of which position noise as a negative phenomenon. Instead, through the development of an ‘ethico-affective’ approach, this book aims to account for a broader spectrum of noise, ranging from the exceptional to the banal; the overwhelming to the inaudible; and the destructive to the generative. What connects these various and variable manifestations of noise is not negativity but affectivity – the capacity to modulate, transform and perturb. Building on the Spinozist assertion that to exist is to be affected, Beyond Unwanted Sound asserts that to exist is to be affected by noise.

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