Inmediacy and Non-Simultaneity: Utopia of Sound

In the last two decades there has been a significant boom in the cultural sensibility towards sounds and noise – a kind of sonic boom that can, following the second meaning of this term, be seen as a breakthrough of the sonic itself. In the wake of this phenomenon, the relationship between Fine Arts and sound as a material of production on the one hand, and the field of Sound Art which emerged since the 60s on the other hand was recalibrated. Questions surrounding issues of spatiality in the Fine Arts that gained in importance with the surge of intermedia installations were increasingly posed on the basis of experimental sound. Pop music has recognised its specific relation to the materiality of sound as its primary source and positioned it at the core of self-reflective projects.
Through the ubiquity of individual and ever-present sonic markers such as mobile phone jingles and sound installations in public space, everyday life has become the scene of a continuous sonic semiosis. Undoubtedly, corporate sound design on the one hand, and advertising/branding machinery geared towards “sound logos”, on the other, have long since reacted to these novel sign systems. In cinema, the individual existence of the film soundtrack has developed in increasing detail in recent years - either by moving contrary to the direction of the tempo of actions on screen or to the montage structure, or by orienting along pre-existing music as well as cultural resonances beyond cinematic immanence. By now, those techniques have reached mainstream cinema as common means of production.
With contributions by: Nora M. Alter,Michel Chion, Christoph Cox, Diedrich Diederichsen, Caryl Flinn, Barbara Flückiger, Tom Holert, Brandon LaBelle, Christian Petzold, Constanze Ruhm, Christian Scheib, Holger Schulze, Axel Stockberger, Terre Thaemlitz, and Hildegard Westerkamp.