A Philosophy of Ambient Sound

This book presents the first book-length study of ambient sound as a key issue in sound studies and sonic philosophy. Taking a broad, media-philosophical approach, it explores ambient sound as a basic dimension of the sonic environment, sonic technologies, sonic arts and the material staging of listening.

Through analyses of key concepts such as surroundability, mediatization, immanence, synthetization and continuous variation, the book elucidates how ambient aspects of sound influence our conceptions of what sound is and how it affects us by exposing sound's relation to basic categories such as space, time, environment, medium and materiality. It also illuminates how the strategic production of ambient sound constitutes a leading aesthetic paradigm that has been a decisive factor in the shaping of the modern sonic environment from key developments in experimental and popular music, sound art and cinematic sound design to the architectural-technological construction of listening spaces in concert halls and theaters and in current streaming infrastructures, digital surround sound and the everyday aesthetics of headphone listening.

Offers the first extensive and theoretically informed analysis of what ambient sound is and does Illustrates the role of ambient sound in sonic culture and its cultural, social, political and aesthetic implications Presents a new conceptual framework for the analysis of ambient sound and music

Auteur
Ulrik Schmidt is Associate Professor in media and communication at Roskilde University, Denmark. Working in the intersection between sound studies, media philosophy, contemporary art and audiovisual aesthetics, he explores the material, technological and environmental conditions for communication, art and the production of subjectivity in modern and contemporary culture.

Contenu
Introduction.- PART 1: FIELDS.- Effects of Being-in.- Environmental and Surrounding Sounds.- Field Effects.- PART 2: STRATEGIES.- Sonic Mediatization.- Synthetic Strategies.- Ambient Sound Design.- PART 3: FRAMES.- Staging Ambient Listening.- Architectures of Acoustic Immanence.- Amplified Surrounds.- Mobile Infrastructures of Everyday Listening.- Epilogue. Generic, Inattentive, Asocial.