8/20/2019 Tim Ingold Against Soundscape 1

1/2

TimIngold

AgainstSoundscapeI v being feltnot onlyin and archaeologY'to befallen studiesin t it means to beable to see. That ¡s to say, it scarcely deals with the phenomenon of light.lt is rather about the relationsbetween objects. images and their ¡nterpretations.A study of aunl culture, builtalonq the same lines,would be about the ¡nterpretat¡onof a world ofthings rendered in theiracoustic forms. lt has becomeconventionalto describe such a worldby means of the concept of soundscape. Undoubtedly when itwasfirst¡ntroduced,the concept served a useful rhetoricalpurpose in dnwingattention to a sensory registerthat had been neglected relative to sight. I believe however that it has now outlivedits usefulness. More

to the point. it carries the risk that we might lose touch withsound in just the same way that visualstudies have lost touch withlight.ln what followsI willset out four reasons why I th¡nk the concept ofsoundscape lvouldbe better abandoned.

First, the environment that we experience, know andmove around in is not sliced up along the lines ofthe sensory pathwaysby whichwe enter into it. The worldwe perceive is the some world, whateverpath

we take, and each of us perceives it as an undivided centre of activityand awareness. For this reasonI deplore the fash¡on formultiplying- scopes of every possible kind. The powerof the prototypicalconcept of landscape lies precisely in the fact that it is not tied to any specificsensory reg¡ster - whethervision,hearing, touch, smell or whatever. ln ordinaryperceptual practice these registers cooper¿te soclosely, and w¡thsuch overlap offunction,that theirrespect¡ve contributionsare impossible to teaseapart. The landscape is of course visible, bul it only becomes visuol when ¡t has been rendered by sometechnique, such as of paint¡ngor photography,which then allows it to be viewedindirectly,by wayofthe resultingimage which,as ¡t were, retuÍns the landscape back to the viewerin an artificiallypurifiedform,shorn of all other sensory dimensions. Likewise, a landscape may be oudible, but to be ourol itwould have to have been first rendered by a technique of sound art or recording,such that it can beployedbockwiThinan environment(such as a darkened room)in whichwe are otherwisedeprivedofsensory stimulus.

We should not be fooled by art historiansand other students of visual culturewho writebooks about thehistoryof seeing that are entirely aboutthe contemplation of images. Their conceitis to imagine thatthe eyes are not so much organs of observationas ¡nstrumentsof playback,lodged in the image ratherthan the body of the observer. lt is as though the eyes did our seeing for us, leavingus to (re)viewtheimages they relay to our consciousness. For the active looking and watchingthat people do as they goabout theirbusiness, visual theorists have subst¡tuted regimes of the 'scopic', defined and distinguìshedby the recordingand playback functions of these allegoricaleyes. Although the apparent etymologicalkinshipbetween the scopic and the 'scapes' of our perception is spurious('scape' is actually derived

from the Dutch schop, cognate with the English suffix'-ship'.refening to a fellowshipor communityofpersons witha commonalityof land, law and custom), such a connection is commonlypresumed. Thusin resortingto the notion of soundscape, we run the risk of subjectingthe ears, in studies ofthe aural,to the same fate as the eyes in visual studies. This is my second objectionto the concept. We need to

avoid the trap, analogous to thinkingthat the power of sight inheres in images, of suppos¡ng that thepower of hearing inheres in recordings.For the ears, just like the eyes, are organs of observation,notinstrumentsof playback. Just as we use our eyes to watch and look, so we use our eãrs to listenas wego forth in the world.

It is of course to light,and not to vision,that sound should be compared. The fact however that soundis so often and apparently unproblematicallycompared to srght rather than lightreveals much aboutour implicit assumptionsregard¡ng vision andhearing,whichrest on the curious idea that the eyes arescreens whichlet no l¡ghtthrough, leaving us to reconstructthe worldinside our heads, whereas theears are holes in the skullwhich let thesound rightin so that it can mingle withthe soul. One result ofthis idea is that the vast psychologicalliterature onoptical illusionsis unmatched by an¡hing on thedeceptions of the ear. Another,that I have already noted, is that studies of visualpercept¡onhave hadvirtually nothingto say about the phenomenon of light.lt would be unfortunate ifstudies of auditoryperceptionwere to followsuit, and to lose touch withsound just as visual studies have lost touch withlight.Far better. by placingthe phenomenon of sound at the heart of our inquiries,we might be able topoint to parallel ways inwhich lightcould be restorèd to the central place ¡t deserves in understandingvisual perception.To do this. however, we have first to address the awkwardquestion:what rs sound?

This question is a versionof the old philosophical conundrum:does the tree fall¡ngin a storm makeany sound if there is no creature present withears to hear ¡t? Does sound consist ofvibrationsin themedium? Or ¡s it something we reg¡ster inside our heads? ls it a phenomenon of the material world orofthe mind? ls it but there' or'inhere'? Can we dream it?

It seems to me that such questions are wronglyposed, in so far as they set up a rigid division betweentwo worlds,of mind andmatter - a divisionthat is reproduced every time that appeal is made to themoter¡olityof sound. Sound, in my view. is neither mentalnor material, buta phenomenon of experienct- that is, of our immersionin, and comminglingwith,the world in whichwe findourselves. Suchimmersion,asthe philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty(1964) insisted, ¡s an existentialpreconditionforthe isolation bothof minds to perceive and of things in the worldto be perceived. To put it another way,sound is simply anotherwayof saying 'l can heal. ln just the same way, lightis another wayof saying 'lcan see'. lf this is so, then neither sound nor light,strictly speaking,can be an object of our perception.Sound is not whot wehear, any more than lightis what we see. Herein lies mythirdobjection totheconcept of soundscape. lt does not make sense for the same Íeason that a concept of'lightscape'woulcnot make sense. The scaping of things - that is, their surface conformatìon- is revealed to us thanksto their illumination.When we look around ona fine day, we see a landscape bathed in sunlight, notalightscape. Likewise, listeningto our surroundings,we do not hear a soundscape. For sound, I wouldargue, is not the object but the medium of our perception. lt is what wehear in. Símilarly,we do not seelightbut see in it (lngold2000: 265).

Once lightand sound are understood in these terms, it becomes immediately apparentthat in ourordinaryexperience. the two are so closely involvedwithone another as to be virtuallyinseparable.This involvement,howevet ra¡ses interestingquestions that we are only beginningto address. How, forexample, does the contrast between lightand darkness compare with that between sound and silence?It is fairlyobviousthat the experience of sound is quite differentin the dark than in the light.Does theexperience of lightlikewise depend on whetherweare simultaneously drowned in sound orcocoonedin silence? These kinds of questions bring me to my fourthobjection to the concept of soundscape.Since it is modelled on the concept of landscape, soundscape places the emphasis on the surfoces ofthe world in which we live. Sound andlight,however, are infusionsof the mediumin whichwe findour being and through which wemove. Traditionally, bothin my own disciplineof anthropologyand

Tim Ingold

8/20/2019 Tim Ingold Against Soundscape 1

2/2

Tim lngold

more widelyin fieldssuch as culturalgeography, art historyand materialculture studiet scholan havefocused on the fixitiesof surface conformationrather than the fluxesof the medium. They have, inother words, imagined a world hat has already precipitatedouLor solidified,from these fluxes.Goingon

toings with theirmaterial¡ty. they have contrived

to dematerial¡se the medium in allyimmersed. Even the air we breathe, and onwhichlifedepends, becomes a figment of the imagination.

Now the mundane term for what I have called the fluxes ofthe medium is weother. So long as we are

- as we say -'out in the open', the wea ' lt is. to thecontrary fundamental to percePtion.h erceive rn (lngold2005). We do not touch the wind,but t it;we do not hearrain,but hear in it. Thus wind. sunshine and rain, experienced as feeling, lightand sound, underwriteourcapacities, respectively. to touch, to see and to hear. ln orderto understand the phenomenon of sound(as indeed those of lightand feeling),we should therefore turn our attentionskywards, to the realm ofthe birds, rather than towards the solid earth beneath our feet. The sþ ¡s not an object of perception,any more than sound is. lt is not a thingwe see. lt is rather luminosityitself.But in a way, ¡t is sonoritytoo, as the musicologist Victor Zucke¡kandlexplained (Zuckerkandl,1956:344). ln the experienceone

has of looking up into the sÇ according to Zuckerkandl.lies the essence of what it means to hear.lf thisis so, then our metaphors for describingauditoryspace should be derived not fromlandscapestudies but frommeteorologY.

This leads me to two furtherpoints, in conclusion,that address not the concept of soundscape itself butrather its impliedemphasis on, first,embodiment, and second, emplocement.l have mentioned the wind,and the fact that to live we must be able to breathe. Wind andbreath are ¡ntimatelyrelated inthe continuous movement of inhalationand exhalation that is fundamental to life andbeing- lnhalationis wind becomingbreath, exhalationis breath becoming wind.Ata recent anthropological conferenceon 'wind.lifeand health', the issue came up of how the wind is embodied in the constitutionof personsaffected by it. For my part, I feltuneasy about applying theconcept of embodiment in this context.It made breathing seem likea process of precipitation,in which airwassomehow sedimented into thebody as it solidified.Acknowledgingthat the livingbody. as it breathes, is necessarily swept up in the

currentsofthemedium, I suggested thatthewind is notso much embodiedasthe bodyenwinded.lt

seems to me, moreover, that what applies to windalso applies to sound. Afterall. the wind whistles,andpeople hum or murmuras they breathe. Sound, like breath, is experienced as a movement of comingandgoing, inspintionand expiration.lf that is so, then we should say of the body, as it sings, hums, whistlesor speaks, that it is ensounded.ltis like settingsail, launching the body rnto sound likea boat on thewaves or, perhaps more appropriately.likea kite in the sky.

Finally, ifsound is like the wind, then it willnot stay put. not does it put persons or things in their place.Sound flows,as wind blows, along irregular, winding paths. and the places it describes are likeeddies,formedby a circular moveme nt oround rather than a fixed locationwithin.Iofollow sound.that is tolr'sten, is to wanderthesame paths. Attentivelistening.as opposed to passive hearing, surely entailsthe very oppos¡te of emplacement.We may, in practice,be anchored to the ground, but it is not soundthat provides the anchor. Againthe analogy with ffyinga kite is apposite. Though the flye/sfeet maybe firmlyplanted on the spot, it is not the windthat keeps them there. Likewise,the sweep of soundcontinuallyendeavours to tear listeners away, causing them to surrender to its movement.lt requ¡resan effortto stay in place. And this effortpulls ogornst sound rather than harmonising with it. Placeconfinement,in short, is a formof deafness.

References

lngold,Tim(2ffi)The perception of the environment:essoys in livelihood, dwelling ondskill. London:Routledge

lngold, Tim (2005) the eye of the storm:visualperceptionand the weathel Visuol Studies 20 (2), 97 -104Merleau-Ponty,Maurice (l 964) 'Eye and mind , trans. C. Dalleryin The primocy of percePt¡on, ondother essoys on phenomenologicol psychology, the philosophyof orl history ondpolitia,ed. J. M. Edie.Evanston, lL: NorthwesternUnivesityPresl pp.l 59-l90Zuckerkandl, Victor(1956) Sound ond symbol:music ond the externol world,t¡ans,W. R. Trask,BollingenSeries XLIV,Pr¡nceton,N.J.: Princeton UniversityPress

Tim lngold