The Sound of Technology

Beschreibung

In an era of “lossless” digital sound systems, which make the medium itself disappear in order to guarantee the smooth transmission of information, it is the re-adoption of low-tech and low-fi sound technologies that serves to counter the accepted norm of transparency and immateriality. What Andy Birtwistle (2010) refers to as the “sound of technology”, is in direct opposition to this norm. It is this sound, which pits a technological audibility against the “well-behaved, well-modulated and largely ‘inaudible’ soundtrack of mainstream cinema” (Birtwistle 2010, 64). The manner in which this sound of technology makes its presence felt in a given film, depends on a number of factors. Aspects of production, like the type of microphone and the recording medium, are just as crucial as the quality and condition of the film material. Apart from this phenomenon described as ground noise, the technological audibility of a film is influenced by a mechanical disturbance of the filmstrip (optical crackle), which also indicates the age of the film copy itself. Added to the sound of the filmstrip itself are the other components of the so-called system noise, namely elements of the camera and projector (e.g., shutter, drive belt, motor, fan). This aspect of the sound of technology is all but ignored by film studies, which confine their attention to language, music and effects, and yet it can significantly contribute to a consideration of the historical, temporal and affective dimensions of film sound. In contrast to the film industry, which has dismissed this phenomenon as noise, the avant-garde film not only recognized the sound of technology, but also proceeded to employ it in practice. The sound of technology is not born of the production of meaning; rather, it places the medium itself, in all its sensory presence, in the spotlight. The higher the degree of low tech employed, the more conspicuous its sonic materiality, as will be shown in various filmic examples.

Titel der Veranstaltung

XI Maggis International Film Studies Spring School

Veranstalter*in