The Bloomsbury Handbook of Sound Art

Now it has actually been released, a great project! Planned a few years ago by Sanne Krogh Groth and Holger Schulze as a new and different handbook of sounding arts beyond the borders of Western European high culture, it is now actually on the table. It has become what it was meant to be, a discursive accompaniment to current sound culture. It takes the demands of a current multidisciplinary cultural studies perspective seriously and opens the concept of sound art to popular sound cultures, gender discourses, technical and media culture, postcolonial transformations, political actions and reflections, institutional critique, sonic fiction and much more.

It is clear that such an effort cannot emerge as an academic textbook with a canonical structure. Based on concrete examples, experiences, listening and design practices, sound and discursive spaces are explored in 24 contributions. The introduction by the editors can serve as a guideline for linking the contributions, but on detailed reading the connecting lines emerge quite naturally. This creates synergies, productive gaps and further fields become visible. Exciting!

Here is an overview of the content:

Contents
Sound Art. The First 100 Years of an Aggressively Expanding Art Form
Sanne Krogh Groth and Holger Schulze

Part I
After the Apocalypse. The Desert of the Real as Sound Art

The Sonic Aftermath. The Anthropocene and Interdisciplinarity after the Apocalypse
Anette Vandsø
Composing Sociality. Toward an Aesthetics of Transition Design
Jeremy Woodruff
Dealing with Disaster. Notes toward a Decolonizing, Aesthetico-Relational Sound Art
Pedro J. S. Vieira de Oliveira
Vocalizing Dystopian and Utopian Impulses. The End of Eating Everything
Stina Marie Hasse Jørgensen

Part II
Journeys across the Grid. Postcolonial Transformations as Sound Art

Diam! ” (Be Quiet!). Noisy Sound Art from the Global South
Sanne Krogh Groth
Curating Potential. Migration and Sonic Artistic Practices in Berlin
Juliana Hodkinson in Conversation with Elke Moltrecht and Julia Gerlach
Four Artistic Journeys i Pockets of Communities Holger Schulze in Conversation with Emeka Ogboh
Cairo Baby-Doll. Some Remarks on a Cairo Sound Art Scene
Søren Møller Sørensen
When I Close My Eyes Everything Is So Damn Pretty (Can’t Do the Thing You Want, Can’t Do the Thing You Want, Can’t Do the Thing You Want)
Samson Young
Sound in Covert Places. Indonesian Sound Art Development through Bandung Perspectives
Bob Edrian
Sound Art in East and Southeast Asia. Historical and Political Considerations
Cedrik Fermont and Dimitri della Faille

Part III
Come Closer . . . Intimate Encounters as Sound Art

Kiss, Lick, Suck. Micro-Orality of Intimate Intensities
Brandon LaBelle
Gender, Intimacy, and Voices in Sound Art. Encouragements, Self-Portraits, and Shadow Walks
Cathy Lane
Sonic Intimacies. The Sensory Status of Intimate Encounters in 3-D Sound Art
Sabine Feisst and Garth Paine
Intruders Touching You. Intimate Encounters in Audio
Holger Schulze

Part IV
De-Institutionalize! Institutional Critique as Sound Art

Inquiring into the Hack. New Sonic and Institutional Practices by Pauline Oliveros, Pussy Riot, and Goodiepal
Sharon Stewart
Outside and Around Institutions. Two Artistic Positions
Working in the Sounding Field
Annea Lockwood
Conversations and Utopias
Holger Schulze in Conversation with Mendi and Keith Obadike
Audiogrammi of a Collective Intelligence.
The Composer-Researchers of S2FM, SMET, NPS, and Other Mavericks
Laura Zattra
Sounding in Paths, Hearing through Cracks. Sonic Arts Practices and Urban Institutions
Elen Flügge

Part V
The Sonic Imagination. Sonic Thinking as Sound Art

The Sonic Fiction of Sound Art. A Background to the Theory-Fiction of Sound
Macon Holt
Women Sonic Thinkers. The Histories of Seeing, Touching, and Embodying Sound
Sandra Kazlauskaite
“Specific Dissonances.” A Geopolitics of Frequency
Alastair Cameron and Eleni Ikoniadou
A Universe in a Grain of Sound. The Production of Time and Sonic Fiction in Machinic Sound Art
Tobias Ewé

Part VI
Making Sound. Building Media Instruments as Sound Art

The Instrument as Theater. Instrumental Reworkings in Contemporary Sound Art
Sanne Krogh Groth and Ulrik Schmidt
From Turntable to Neural Net. Sound Art, Technoscience, Craft, and the Instrument
Chris Salter and Alexandre Saunier
The Instrument as Medium. Phonographic Work
Rolf Großmann
How to Build an Instrument?
Three Artistic Positions—Articles and Interviews
i Membrane. Materialities and Intensities of Sound
Carla J. Maier in Conversation with Marianthi Papalexandri-Alexandri
ii Pickups and Strings. On Experimental Preparation and Magnetic Amplification
Yuri Landman
iii Mechanics. From Physicality over Symbolism through Malfunction and Back Again
Morten Riis

Unfortunately this book is not yet available via open source,
Publication Link