Sound as a Metaphor for Being-In-Nature

I still need to get my hands back on R. Murray Schaffer's The Tuning of the World, which I had to return to the library before getting to read, but I feel like the connection between Merleau-Ponty's being-in-the-world and the pursuit of sound ecology are linked.  

I just finished Virginia Madsen's little article entitled "Notes Toward Sound Ecology in the Garden of Listening," and was struck, as I usually am in writings on soundscapes, by the sense that the city is "a homogenising, polluted, and 'disturbed' environment where noise (equated with poorly designed acoustic technology)  is the parasite that consumes its host."  This consuming power of sound though, suggests to me that listening is a powerful agent of our being-in-the-world. 

I'd like to suggest that museums think more carefully about the use of sound and silence in order to soothe the effects of the city.  I'll mention Hildegaard Westerkamp's critique of the Museum of Anthropology's soundscape as an example of the wrong that large institutions are doing us with the use of "silence."

Essay Schema

I have started the writing process, and though it's very slow going, it really helps me to organize my thoughts.  As I write I am keeping track of the main ideas in each paragraph.  I'll keep updating this schema as I continue to write, and add other posts as I read new articles.  We'll see how the process of researching and writing co-exist here... (I've never written an essay before while continuing to research. )

The Body as the Seat of All Understanding (establish the significance of the body)

-The world is murky and uncertain; we rely on the body for information.

-Merleau-Ponty's third position between Empiricism and Intellectualism.

-David Rokeby, and being implicated in the world. Very Nervous System

-Limitations of the body: the situated perspective and horizons.

-Sense experiences cannot be abstracted, b/c they are all interconnected within the body.

-Merleau-Ponty's Doubly constituted body.

-Atau Tanaka: Global string: The body as sensed by others and an instrument for sensing

-Museums should take account of the body using Merleau-Ponty and Multi-media art.

Merleau-Ponty pg 258

I'm still working my way through Phenomenology of Perception (at a very slow pase), but it does get my brain working.  

On page 257 he gets into the spatial aspects of sense experience, and it creates a very visual metaphor for me, of a human walking through the world with senses that extend out to varying limits, all mutually informing one another about the environment.  He says,

"It is neither contradictory nor impossible that each sense should constitute a small world within the larger one, and it is even in virtue of its peculiarity that it is necessary to the whole and opens upon the whole."

I like the idea that each sense has a sort of spatial realm, that helps to inform us about the greater picture.  He uses the example of the spatial sense of hearing that gives a more vast understanding of space than does sight:

"When, in the concert hall, I open my eyes, visible space seems to me cramped compared to that other space through which, a moment ago, the music was being unfolded, and even if I keep my eyes open while the piece is being played, I have the impression that the music is not really contained within this circumscribed and unimpressive space."

Though the sense of hearing seems to extend the environment beyond the walls of the concert hall, sight traps the experience in a container.  Though the sound may not actually permeate out into the night, the sense of sight and sound toghether inform us about the environment both inside and outside I think. I'm rambling now, so I'll finish with:

"It brings a new dimension stealing through visible space, and in this it surges forward...Like the perspective of other people making its impact on the world for me, the spatial realm of each sense is an unknowable absolute for the others, and to that extent limits their spatiality....the unity of space can be discovered only in the interplay of the sensory realms."

I'm hoping to make a case for this wholeness of sensual experience in the art museum context.

Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Music Hall courtesy of Daily Dose of Imagery

Mind and Body Connection

As I continue to think about my writings and readings, I am still struck by the phenomenological notion that the mind and sensual body are intimately connected and thrust together out into the world.  Right now I'm looking at a piece by Maria Coleman called "Reappraising the Disappearing Body and the Disembodied Eye Through Multi-Sensory Art."  It comes from the e-journal Crossings. She very eloquently addresses the union of thought and the senses, and I particularly like her urgent use of language such as when she states that, 

"...our haste to disassociate ourselves from mortality removed our sense of wholeness. By distrusting bodily truths and intuition, we divided ourselves internally and splintered our wider relationship with nature."

She calls for a reunion of the mind and body and the destruction of the disembodied eye. 

For my research I still very much want to continue looking at the cultural shift that is a reaction to ocularcentric society... our more interactive and multi-sensory world that comes along with electronic technology. I'd like to look more closely at the sensual body and its place in art and also in art institutions.  I think a participatory mode is upon us, and I'd like to reflect on some new and interesting ideas that are coming out of the museum world.  

I'm going to look into the tactics of the Musee de la Civilization in Quebec city, because they seem to be doing some very interesting things with theatrical lighting and bodily involvement etc. engaging the senses.  I came across this one at the conference "From Jurassic Part to Rothco's Chapel" in a talk by Francois Tremblay about the museum as performance.  I'll definitely have to visit someday.