Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 January 2001
As if the (terrified) Photographer must exert himself to the utmost to keep the Photograph from becoming Death. But I, already an object, I do not fight. (Barthes 1988: 14)
Perhaps this is the ultimate way of playing with reality. (Baudrillard 1997: 38)
Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an object at very close range by way of its likeness, its reproduction. (Benjamin 1992: 217)
This paper is born out of my experience as an electroacoustic composer/sound
artist and consumer, who passionately engages in the procurance, employment
and exchange of soundscape recordings: an ambivalent engagement
which is aesthetically rewarding, yet on further reflection deeply
unsettling. The aim of this paper is to question and explore why this
ostensibly benign and increasingly common procedure (i.e. the routine of
soundscape recording/sampling/abstracting, editing, retouching,
transforming, mixing, recontextualising . . . ) may result in a durable
confrontation with ‘terror’ accompanied by ethical
compromise. To articulate a personal and intuitive response, I will refer to
critical writings on photography to illuminate sound (i.e. utilising the
photograph as a counterpoint to the sonic record). I will be focusing in
particular on the recording and the reappropriation of human
utterance in electro-acoustic music, as it is probably the most intimate, as
well as familiar, sonic material to humans. You cannot escape from your own voice.