Sound Unbound Review

Andrew Elijah Edwards

Sound Unbound is collection of essays on the nature of culture. music. and the digital landscape. The book is edited by Paul D. Miller. who has collected writings by a large variety of individuals. from science fiction authors to experimental sound artists. The essays are all a well-balanced mix of personal opinion. poetics. and professionally executed research. Authors bounce between eloquent philosophies to critical discussion. embedding their citations organically within the flow of the reading. While they cite their sources. the research has been thoroughly integrated into their thought processes. feeling as at home in the essays as their own opinions and musings. I appreciate the warmth and soul to the writing. that the authors didn’t feel obligated to stay in the realm of dry academia.
One of my lasting feelings from this book is the creation of a visceral connection with emerging digital landscapes. It successfully transforms the view of digital media transmission and internet data space from a cold electronic net to an emergent juicy hearth of physicality. cultural aesthetic riches and complexity. It relates relationships with technology that are based on an intelligent and physical embodiment through the machine as an interplay and union between mind and technical intelligence. While the authors help us to bring life to the data and integrate it physically on a deep level. the book itself mirrors this concept. or help push it further. coming with a with a disc of musical tracks that allows us to tie the data of the book’s text to the lush visceral experience of sonic landscapes.
A large theme in Sound Unbound is the discussion of emerging issues of copyright and remix media in a system that is becoming continually less suitable for our current structures of self-interested legality towards content rights. Authors reference the combinate nature of the act of cultural creation throughout history and how these processes are only sped up through our intense connectivity. They point out. from different angles. how the strength of the web comes from the emergent phenomena of collective addition and transfer. That we would do ourselves a favor by allowing data or media to flow easily around the network and allow for the arising of new complexities rather than walling off our creative outputs within our own rights.
In this context. I find the nature of the book’s research extremely interesting. The authors are aware of the inherent remix nature of any creative act. and while the state of internet culture increasingly hides links to creative origin. or makes the interplay too complex to easily grasp. they are writing about it in the most concretely linked medium. Authors are citing all of their research and creative inspirations even referencing where the lines become blurred. Many are overly rigorous in citing their influences. more so than a classic research essay. I really enjoy this emergent trend from these writers. where in writing about the complexities of remix culture they feel a need to try and tie down all of their own sources. The structural nature of their own research medium also mirrors the strength that arises from the interplay between creative sources. The research essay itself is a proof the power of combining sources into one stronger work.
I often think of myself as someone who works with media and space visually. I feel myself influenced by sound. and utilizing sound. but as a hidden counterpart to the visual. With moving image I felt that I could grab it. I could hold it still and look at a frame. whereas audio exists only temporally. and cannot be held. It can only be experienced in passing. Sound always felt amorphous and nonphysical. Yet in reading this text. the authors helped to flesh out sound as an entirely spatial and visceral medium. It has helped me to understand how to navigate a sonic landscape and feel comfortable gripping and riding those worlds. I was extremely excited by Eric Davis’ essay Roots and Wires. where he describes the hyper dimensionality of a sonic landscape. How sounds can coexist in the same spot without fusing. as compared to visual space where objects cannot coexist at the same place and time. To my delight. the book was a lot more spatial than I had expected.
I was intrigued by the writing choices in the Saul Williams essay. The Future of Language. He puts forward a short investigation into the sacredness and power of words and sounds as they relates to historical culture and the sounds of digital media. He writes the piece entirely in lower case letters. an interesting parallel between what he says about linguistic power. Perhaps in feeling the power of his own words. capitalization is not needed for strength. or would be overly forceful. It was a subtle but insightful choice in the execution of this topic.
There were a few essays. however. that didn’t seem to fit into the insightfulness of the rest of the work. Starting off the book. Steve Reich’s piece An Introduction. or My (Ambiguous) Life with Technology. while somewhat interesting. is primarily a history of Reich’s creative endeavors. It gives insight into Reich’s own past. and how the creative process evolves. but doesn’t really have the larger cultural significance embodied in the other works. Much of the book has far reaching philosophical implications for the new frontiers of media. and Reich’s essay seems to be a little too self-involved.
I found that the authors in this book all displayed how to skillfully integrate research into one’s writing. They have let the research simmer into their thought processes so that in putting the essays together. the citations feel deeply rooted in the connections of their own mental flow. rather than being stuffed in after the fact. The references seem to come from. or through. the authors. rather than a distinctly outside force. It was helpful to see how in depth research can be woven into philosophical discourse.