Infomanticism: rethinking the Romantic subject
through situated sound works
Frearson, A.  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5223-7972
(2024)
Infomanticism: rethinking the Romantic subject
through situated sound works.
In: Sound, Language and the Making of Urban Space, 24-25 Aug 2023, University of Copenhagen/Museum of Copenhagen.
It is advisable to refer to the publisher's version if you intend to cite from this work. See Guidance on citing. Abstract/SummaryIn recent examples of my practice-based art research, I voice radically reconfigured landmark historic texts in a variety of contexts in London. I explore these in relation to my concept of 'infomanticism', a modern variant of romanticism that I am testing as potential for socio-political resistance from within our neoliberal networked database economy of subjective attention. Can such art methodologies harness textual noise as a block to monstrous neoliberalism and fascism, or do they remain politically romantic and narcissistic? Recent feminist and indigenous methodologies afford ways of being together with the mess of consumption that nevertheless remains open to alteration. | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) | | Yes | | Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Arts and Communication Design > Art > Fine Art | | 120311 | | artwork, sound, romanticism, infomanticism, London, field recording, database, Frankenstein, Mein Kampf, neoliberalism, fascism, socio-political resistance, feminism, indigenous theory | | Annabel Frearson: "Infomanticism: rethinking the Romantic subject through situated sound works" in Parby, Jakob Ingemann (ed.): Conference Proceedings: Sound, Language and the Making of Urban Space, August 24-25, Copenhagen 2023. University of Copenhagen | | The conference centered on the city, the metropolis, and sound and language as key elements in the production of urban spaces and communities and included scholars from a wide range of fields including history, musicology, art, and cinematography to discuss how sonic, aural and linguistic approaches to urban communities, lifestyles and practices can enrich one another.
Over the last three decades, sound and aural history studies have explored aspects of urban history at the intersection of music, the body, technology, medicine, disability, the environment, and everyday life. From the late Raymond Murray Schafer’s pioneering studies of the urban soundscape via Bruce Smith’s concept of “acoustic communities”, Karin Bijsterveld’s and Peter Payer’s explorations into the conceptualization and abatement of urban noise to Emily Thompson’s study of architectural acoustics, scholars have meticulously and ingeniously refined and expanded the methodologies, terminologies and research questions addressed within the sound studies field. Lately, new approaches focusing on social engineering, the sonic personae, auditory cultures, and sonic effects in the production of urban space have appeared and further increased our knowledge and curiosity about the interrelationship between sound and the city.
Although rarely treated in the context of historical sound studies, the diversity of languages forms a central part of urban soundscapes. Conversations, shouts and singing, in the marketplaces, busses, schoolyards etc. work as semiotic elements in human constructions of and navigation in urban spaces. The study of dialects and sociolingustic research has circled back into urban studies. Investigating and rediscovering how urban communities are both shaped by and shaping linguistic development on the national level and beyond has become a primary target of concern.
By merging studies of linguistic, aural and sonic elements of the metropolis with museological and artistic or practice-based research this conference aimed to break new ground within the booming field of sound studies. Most of the papers are now available online as proceedings each accessible from the links below.
This paper was first published in Parby, Jakob Ingemann (ed.): Conference Proceedings: Sound, Language and the Making of Urban Space, August 24-25, Copenhagen 2023. University of Copenhagen and Museum of Copenhagen, 2024.
The conference was organized within the Lyden af Hovedstaden/Sound of Copenhagen Research and Dissemination Project funded by The Velux Foundation. |
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| 23 Jan 2025 17:11 | Date item deposited into CentAUR | | 12 Mar 2025 14:00 | Date item last modified |
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