Sound In Signal: Listening with Sound Technology 1927-1982

Sound in Signal: Listening With Sound Technology 1927-1982 examines the agency of sound recording technology in the 20th century. This project offers a genealogy of sound recording devices, framing them as critical agents in how we hear, understand, and conceive of recorded media, from cinema to popular music. Sound in Signal proposes that theorists can approach the agency of sound technology through the concept of creative signal processing. This term describes the aesthetic transformations that occur in the recording signal during transmission. This aesthetic dimension is enabled by signal processing devices such as mixers, compressors, spring reverberators, and filters. By defining the term, the project considers the agency of these devices from both technical and creative standpoints, refiguring how we think about the flow of signals in sound recording. In other words, by examining how signals move in recording, Sound in Signal argues for a configuration of recorded sound that stands in contrast to a causal model that places agency exclusively in the hands of the sender or receiver. Instead, the project shows how media theorists, starting in the “middle” of sound recording, reveal an intricate network of agents responsible for shaping both the sender’s intentions and the meaning determined by a listener. Across four chapters—titled mixing, compressing, reverberating, and filtering—the project charts the technical thought that shapes and distributes agency, moving away from a polar model of sound transmission towards a world of detailed, wonderful, and complex electronic agencies.