Overview
- Offers the first extensive and theoretically informed analysis of what ambient sound is and does
- Illustrates the role of ambient sound in sonic culture and its cultural, social, political and aesthetic implications
- Presents a new conceptual framework for the analysis of ambient sound and music
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Sound (PASTS)
Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
Table of contents (12 chapters)
-
Front Matter
-
Fields
-
Front Matter
-
-
Strategies
-
Front Matter
-
-
Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book presents the first book-length study of ambient sound as a key issue in sound studies and sonic philosophy. Taking a broad, media-philosophical approach, it explores ambient sound as a basic dimension of the sonic environment, sonic technologies, sonic arts and the material staging of listening.
Through analyses of key concepts such as surroundability, mediatization, immanence, synthetization and continuous variation, the book elucidates how ambient aspects of sound influence our conceptions of what sound is and how it affects us by exposing sound’s relation to basic categories such as space, time, environment, medium and materiality. It also illuminates how the strategic production of ambient sound constitutes a leading aesthetic paradigm that has been a decisive factor in the shaping of the modern sonic environment – from key developments in experimental and popular music, sound art and cinematic sound design to the architectural-technological construction of listening spaces in concert halls and theaters and in current streaming infrastructures, digital surround sound and the everyday aesthetics of headphone listening.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Ulrik Schmidt is Associate Professor in media and communication at Roskilde University, Denmark. Working in the intersection between sound studies, media philosophy, contemporary art and audiovisual aesthetics, he explores the material, technological and environmental conditions for communication, art and the production of subjectivity in modern and contemporary culture.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: A Philosophy of Ambient Sound
Book Subtitle: Materiality, Technology, Art and the Sonic Environment
Authors: Ulrik Schmidt
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Sound
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1755-6
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Singapore
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-99-1754-9Published: 14 June 2023
Softcover ISBN: 978-981-99-1757-0Due: 15 July 2023
eBook ISBN: 978-981-99-1755-6Published: 13 June 2023
Series ISSN: 2633-5875
Series E-ISSN: 2633-5883
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 291
Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations
Topics: Science and Technology Studies, Sociology, general, Music, Sociology of Culture