The tone of our times : sound, sense, economy, and ecology / Frances Dyson

Contributor(s):

Dyson, Frances

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Leonardo book seriesPublication details: Cambridge, Massachusetts : MIT Press, [2014]Description: xi, 196 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmISBN:

9780262028080 (hardcover : alk. paper)
0262028085 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

304 DYS

Contents:

Endless praise and sweet dissonance -- Acclamation -- Infinite noise -- Disaffected voices -- Resonance, anechoica, and noisy speech -- The racket -- Echoes of eco

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Copy number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Standard Loan	LSAD Library Main Collection	304 DYS (Browse shelf(Opens below))	1	Available		39002100590281

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Sound, tone, music, voice, and noise as forms of sonority through which our current economic and ecological crises can be understood.

In this wide-ranging book, Frances Dyson examines the role of sound in the development of economic and ecological systems that are today in crisis. Connecting early theories of harmony, cosmology, and theological doctrine to contemporary media and governance, Dyson uses sound, tone, music, voice, and noise as forms of sonority through which the crises of "eco" can be read. The sonic environment, Dyson argues, is fundamental to both sense and sensibility, and its delimitation has contributed to the "senselessness" of a world now caught between spiraling debt and environmental degradation.

Dyson draws on scenes, historical moments, artworks, and artistic and theoretical practice to situate the reverberative atmosphere that surrounds and sustains us. From Pythagoras's hammer and the transmutation of music into mathematics, to John Cage's famous experience in the anechoic chamber, to the relocation of the stock market from the street to the computer screen, to Occupy Wall Street's "people's microphone": Dyson finds policies and practices of exclusion. The sound of Pythagoras's forge and the rabble of the market have been muted, rearticulated, and transformed, Dyson argues, through the monotones of media, the racket of financialization, and the gibberish of political speech.

Informed by contemporary sound art, philosophy, media and sociopolitical theory, The Tone of Our Times offers insights into present crises that are relevant to a broader understanding of how space, the aural, and listening have shaped and continue to shape the world we live in.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Endless praise and sweet dissonance -- Acclamation -- Infinite noise -- Disaffected voices -- Resonance, anechoica, and noisy speech -- The racket -- Echoes of eco

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

Series Foreword (p. ix)
Acknowledgments (p. xi)
Introduction (p. 1)
1 Endless Praise and Sweet Dissonance (p. 19)
2 Acclamation (p. 33)
3 Infinite-Noise (p. 47)
4 Disaffected Voices (p. 69)
5 Resonance, Anechoica, and Noisy Speech (p. 93)
6 The Racket (p. 117)
Conclusion: Echoes of Eco (p. 141)
Notes (p. 157)
References (p. 181)
Index (p. 189)

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Frances Dyson is Emeritus Professor of Cinema and Technocultural Studies at the University of California, Davis, and Visiting Professorial Fellow at the National Institute for Experimental Arts, University of New South Wales.