[Commlist] Call for Papers: *Connessioni Remote* N. 7/8 Special Issue *Sound*

Call for Papers - Connessioni remote. Artivismo_Teatro_TecnologiaN. 7/8 2024

Special Issue: “Sound: the sound dimension of everyday life between 
visual arts, machines, electronic music. Theoretical, practical and 
cultural perspectives” Edited by Claudia Attimonelli and Caterina Tomeo.

https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/connessioniremote/libraryFiles/downloadPublic/190 
<https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/connessioniremote/libraryFiles/downloadPublic/190> 


Abstracts Due: 2nd June 2024

Full Paper Due: 15th September 2024



The 20th century opened with an unprecedented emphasis on noise: 'Let us 
cross a great modern capital city with ears more attentive than eyes' 
(2009, p. 12) suggested Luigi Russolo in 1913 in L'Arte dei Rumori - a 
letter-manifesto that was intrinsically transdisciplinary ante litteram, 
as it was written by a painter who spoke about music. The writing 
aspired to distinguish sound from noise, thus paving the way for 
experimentation, analysis and research aimed at:

"break this narrow circle of pure sounds and conquer the infinite 
variety of sounds-noises [...] Ancient life was all silence. In the 19th 
century, with the invention of machines, Noise was born. Today, Noise 
reigns supreme over human sensibilities' (Russolo, 2009, p. 12).

 From noise to sound there is a long theory of machines, technologies, 
devices, media and instruments that orchestrate, build, record, sample, 
archive and set it to music (Attimonelli 2018). The sound dimension of 
our everyday life has become evident through the numerous formats 
through which it is currently possible to listen to sounds, as in the 
case of audio systems that treat them as individual objects to be moved 
and positioned independently of each other and in a three-dimensional space.

In relation to space as a medium for developing the intensity of the 
perceptual experience of listeners and spectators, current sound 
research also aims to encourage the development of interfaces for 
processing and controlling spatialised sound (Oomen 2019).

In the regime of electrical (McLuhan 2011) - then electronic and digital 
- technology, sound is in a state of continuous archiving, recording and 
spectrality (Fisher 2019; Toop 2010); it is no longer autonomous, 
intimate or socially isolated: in the age of its technological 
reproducibility - to paraphrase Benjamin from 1936 - it is, on the 
contrary, immersed in a generative condition, of constant sharing, 
replication and manipulation, it is interdependent on communities and 
software.

The last three decades have also been marked by a radical artistic 
experimentation that has given rise to a developing field of 
investigation defined by the name 'sonic art' (Tomeo 2019), whose 
presence is increasingly relevant not only in traditional exhibition 
spaces, such as museums and galleries, but above all in major cultural 
events and international festivals, dedicated to technological, 
linguistic and stylistic evolutions.

The sonic arts, overcoming the former concept of 'sound art', mainly 
oriented towards the language of the environmental sound installation 
(Cascella 2008), manifest particular attention towards sound and its 
combination with other languages and extra-aural components, in the 
presence or absence of video; Within them, visual music stands out, a 
historically connoted locution referring to the possibility of 
expressing an explanatory and symmetrical relationship between sound and 
video, thus including practices such as image sonification, sound/music 
visualisation, but also video art, vjing, and videomapping (Abbado 
2011). These are, therefore, areas that serve as interpretative models 
with respect to increasingly complex experiences and forms of expression 
in terms of the media employed and the aesthetics generated: from sound 
installations to live performances; from sounds produced digitally by 
artists to electronic and experimental music, from field recordings to 
soundscapes, and sound walking.

The relationship of sound with space, which generates a deep listening 
of the same environment (Schafer 1985) often both container and content 
of the experience, has enabled recent investigations around the 
production of musical works, electronic music compositions, performances 
and listening spaces (Attimonelli 2017; Gozzi 2024).

While Listening Practices investigate listening as a practice, raising 
awareness and exploring listening skills, through collective listening, 
such as soundwalk and sonic storytelling. Feminist Listening Practices 
(Farinati 2017) are also part of this scenario, drawing attention from 
the phenomenon to the 'situated' practice; in this sense, an opening of 
the ears towards otherness represents a unique opportunity for empathy 
as human beings (Oliveros 2005). Furthermore, the ecology of listening 
reflects on the use of tools that contribute to the construction of a 
sociopolitical and cultural landscape that is ethically healthy and 
better (Gentile 2021).

Thinking of sound as a transcultural, hypermedia and non-anthropocentric 
object (Attimonelli 2018), which contemplates and is contemplated by 
contemporary discourses and languages, allows for the interception of 
theoretical and practical horizons from multiple disciplines, fields and 
methodologies: from the transpolitical dimension of sound systems, 
devices with a high degree of sociality capable of involving and 
conveying the linguistic discourses of minorities (Bhabha 1994), to the 
diasporic one enucleated by the metaphor of Sonic Warfare by Steve 
Goodman aka Kode9 (2010), where sound is understood as a possible weapon 
whose uses extend from conflict contexts generating an ecology of fear, 
to the notion of the "audio virus" which, enacted in "viral rhythmic 
contagion" (Eshun 2021), identifies otherwise inexplicable ways of 
propagating even the smallest units of sound.

Sound memes from, for example, African-American culture, exploiting the 
trajectories of the diaspora (Gilroy 1990), have given rise to 
crossovers apparently distant from each other in genre and geography 
thanks to musical practices such as dub, scratching, sampling, and which 
today increasingly take place on the Internet (vaporwave).

Last but not least, sound is being hit by a powerful wave of 
experimentation centred on the construction of virtual immersive sound 
environments, in the sphere of gaming and consoles; audio and sound 
designers with the use of artificial intelligence will expand the 
boundaries in the field of sensory perception and sound production 
(Viola 2022), as well as the relations between humans and non-humans in 
the synthetic reconstruction of the environments in which we live 
(Mancuso 2024).

The double issue of "Connessioni remote" (7-8/2024) therefore intends to 
uncover, map and outline some fundamental languages of the present that 
gravitate around sound research, electronic music, and intermediality 
with approaches and methodologies that are sensitive to the gender 
perspective, cultural processes and the collective imaginary:



- Theoretical perspectives of sonic art;

- sound, noise and velocity: aesthetics and genres in the 21st century;

- platforms, media, formats in the digital age;

- new scenarios in electronic and experimental music;

- genre perspectives in electronic music;

- sound registration and archiving in the digital age;

- sound spatialisation;

- listening practices and devices: headphones, earphones, playlists for 
urban technonarratives;

- sound installations and live performance;

- soundscape; field recording; synthesis; loops; sampling; dubbing;

- soundwalk, storytelling;

- video art, vjing;

- deconstruction and diaspora of sound: high-tech music, glitch, 
post-dubstep;

- listening practice, voice and extended vocal techniques;

- audio design, immersive sound environments in videogames;

- remediation, recording, reproducibility and spectrality of sound;

- intermediality, interactivity, community.



Authors are invited to submit abstracts of up to 600 words and a 
reference list, on the above topics in Italian, English or French, along 
with 4-5 keywords. *Abstracts must be sent to 
(rivistaconnessioni.remote /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(rivistaconnessioni.remote /at/ gmail.com)> by June 2, 2024*. The 
Editorial Board and editors will select the abstracts based on thematic 
and methodological innovation for the ongoing critical debate. The 
Editorial Board will contact authors via email to submit the final 
abstract through the OJS platform by registering online. Full articles 
must be between 30,000 and 40,000 characters, including spaces, 
bibliography excluded, and must be unpublished. Authors are asked to 
consult the article graphics guidelines and editorial standards in 
advance. Articles that follow these guidelines will be accepted. 
Articles of appropriate quality and adherence to the journal's 
objectives will be reviewed and double-masked. For further information: 
(rivistaconnessioni.remote /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(rivistaconnessioni.remote /at/ gmail.com)>

*Connessioni Remote is an open access journal and does not charge 
Article Processing Charges (APC) or any other publication fees. *



---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ commlist.org)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------