In his latest book entitled ‘Acoustic Territories, Sound Culture And Everyday Life‘ (2010, Continuum) Brandon LaBelle continues his explorations in auditory life. Focusing on the relation between sound and society he succeeds in connecting everyday life, urbanism, auditory issues in a very pleasant and informative read.
Cover of Acoustic Territories
The book is structured as a sequence of spaces; starting out with a chapter on the ‘Underground’ which is followed by ‘Home’ which is a chapter on ‘ethical volumes of silence and noise’ the book continues by ‘Sidewalk’, ‘Street’ and ‘Shopping Mall’ to the final chapter of ‘Sky’ on ‘radio, spatial urbanism, and cultures of transmission’. This structure also relates to various forms of sound; as cultural phenomena, as social medium for communication, everyday sounds and so on.
Image from the chapter 'Home' on audial awareness in our everyday surroundings, such as alarm systems in past and present.
LaBelle starts of his book with a beautiful description of a scene between a boy and his father:
“The boy looks to his father and asks, “Where do sounds come from?” My ears prick up, as I glance to the father, anticipating his response. He smiles at the boy, chuckles to himself, and then says, “From a very special place.” I smile back at the father and think quietly to myself, “That seems about right…” Of course, I also want to chime in with a few extra points, as did the father from what I could tell, as he seemed to spend the next few minutes pondering the boy’s question. In that pause of silence, the boy suddenly furthers his line of questioning, jumping up with the words, “But where do they go?”
The father smiles even wider now, and brushes the boy’s hair with his palm. “They go to an even more special place than from where they came.”The boy looks a little confused, and as if to clarify, the father silently points to his chest, then raises his finger into the air, and brings it back down again onto the boy’s chest, smiling…”
Acoustic Territories is a delicate book with precious observations of the sonorities of everyday life, opening new perspectives and relations to its readers.
Brandon LaBelle
Brandon LaBelle is an artist and writer working with sound culture and locational identities. His previous book, ‘Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art’, was published in 2006 also by Continuum. He is the editor of Errant Bodies Press and co-organizer of the related Surface Tension project. He is Currently teaching at the National Academy of the Arts in Bergen, Norway.
