Acoustic Cyberspace, Erik Davis 

Is McLuhan saying that an acoustic space can give rise to a certain subjectivity depending on the construction of that acoustic space? I think that’s what I understood from that beginning of the reading. i then follow how he traces some of the chracteristics of acoustic space’s construction such like simultaneity and resonance, and the subjectivity they each produce. However, I get lost at the point where he says that ” we hear things and we see things simultaneously – but accodring to different logics, logics that are culturally defined and change over time.”  What are these logics? From what do the arise? Soon after he mentions “the conditions for experiencing information, consciousness, conception” and I wonder if these are what he refers to when e talks about “logics”. Also, what realm of sound is he considering that lends itself to logic? I don’t think I’m thinking of sound the way he is, and I should be, yet. At this point I understand this logic as something used to perceive sound. However, later on he higlights that “sound and smel carry vectors of mood and affect which change the qualitative organization of space, unfolding a different logic with a space’s range of potentials”, and I become confused as to whether the logic he spoke of precedes the perception of sound or if it is effected and produced by sound instead.

At the middle of the reading I am intereseted to see why he thinks this is of any importance : the “larger implications of sound and acoustics”.

He parallels the “utopian imagination” produced by the invention of the radio with “the rhetoric surrounding information technology”. This “utopian energy”, that uses imagination to dream about the possibility of progress, then dwindles away as the radio spectrum becomes “commodified and consumerized” by the state (“boundaries and rules that defince the commercial radio”)

He claims that radio, and presently the acoustic dimension of electronic media, produced “a different logic”. What is this logic produced my the acoustics of electronic media?

Early on in the text he wrote that “acoustic space isn’t limited to a world of music or sound; the environment of electronic media itself engenders this way of organizing and perceiving the other spaces we intersect”, and I had no idea what he meant by this, however after reading his idea about the logic produced by the acoustic dimension of electronic media I think that it may be possible that what he was saying at first was that this logic, which I still don’t know the mechanism he proposes it is produced by, is used as a way “of organizing and perceiving the other spaces we intersect.” …???

 He proposes that acoustic space can create subjectivities that “can help us feel our way through the spaces we are opening up and moving into”, and I am lost about what spaces he is talking about: information technology, electronic media, and their repercussions? How would these subjectivities do this?

Is his example of 60s and 70s electronic music’s “emphasis on the cosmic, on spatial disorientation, on transport, on affect, on the nonhuman.”, and example of the ability of acoustic space to create modes of subjectivity? The subjectivities it opened, contrasted to pop music, are the less personalized soundscapes and the pyschic spaces (vs the organization of narrative around love and lost)

In the first paragraph of the text he notes sound’s ability to act as a map, and then towards the end he states that electronic music “involves mapping the electronic media spaces that humans find themselves in”. WHAT THE HELL?? What is this “mapping” he is talking about?

Electronic music, dub music create “environments [that] suggest a kind of cyberspace – a spacious electronic orienation of affect and quality rathaer than information and quantity…”

 When he ends with “By pushing the boundaries of electro-acoustic environements, of acoustic cyberspace, we can maintain a line into the open spaces of the unknown”, I hope it is correct that I understand this is possible through the production of subjectivities…??

 Quote:

              “Sound and smell carry vectors of mood and affect which change the qualitative organization of space,     unfolding a different logic with a space’s range of potentials.”

• The words themselves are quite simple, however the ideas he wants to capture with phrases like “qualitative organization of space”, “space’s range of potentials”, along with the word “logic” are difficult to grasp unless one has read the entire text. His claim about the vectors of mood and affect instilled in sound and smell would have to be substantiated by some scientific data in my opinion, although personal experience may seem to support the statement. This quote is establishing the characteristic of sound that gives rise to it’s importance in producing subjectivities, and in turn the roles, he later writes, they play in human experience.
• The fact that the quote states that there are potentials in a space that can be tapped into by sound’s effects on the “qualitative organization of space” hints to the importance of studying sound because it opens new qualitative dimensions in an old space which serve as avenues to new ways of thinking, understanding, etc.

Megan Nordstrom’s Engl121 Portfolio

Well I first read Erik Davis’s text and then when I came to the portfolio I naturally found it boring, since the first reading provided ways of understanding sound to which I had never been introduced before; still, the information in the portfolio is very helpful, detailed, and well organized. It provided hints to what the instructor is looking for in a good paper.

             Quote:

                        ” ‘By setting this background mood with the help of narration and sound, Seabiscuit starts to be transformed into a symbol for success and overcoming hardships’ “

• The reasoning behind the sentence is clear because of its structure, and the choice of words is appropriate for the audience. The writer shows that they have given thought to the role of sound in the context of a movie.
• The quote gives evidence to the role sound holds in the realm of people’s perception and understanding of the world around us, even when this example used film as the object of attention. This role is important if people are interested in widening human experience of the world.