Amplifications: Poetic Migration, Auditory Memory

Product Description

Written by one of the most prominent thinkers in sound studies, Amplifications presents a perspective on sound narrated through the experiences of a sound artist and writer. A work of reflective philosophy, Amplifications sits at the intersection of history, creative practice, and sound studies, recounting this narrative through a series of themes (rattles, echoes, recordings, etc.). Carter offers a unique perspective on migratory poetics, bringing together his own compositions and life's works while using his personal narrative to frame larger theoretical questions about sound and migration.

Review

“This is a wonderful, exhilarating read, thoroughly original. It is personal, poetic – full of literary allusions connected to significant radio productions re-visited, re-imagined and literally remade. The text is rather like a sonic Proust meeting a John Berger for the ears, in which the themes are interwoven in order to explore the opaque layers of meaning, memory, culture and creativity within each radio artwork discussed. A tour de force!” ―Michael Bull, Professor of Sound Studies, University of Sussex, UK

“Being simultaneously an auditory autobiography and a cultural history of sound, Amplifications is an excellent example of how to productively write about sonic experiences differently. As a piece of both literary and scholarly work, this book is a fascinating read.” ―Vincent Meelberg, Senior Lecturer, Department of Cultural Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and founding editor of the Journal of Sonic Studies

“Paul Carter's periautography is a uniquely rewarding meditation on voice and word as motion. Amplifications unquestionably amplifies the stakes in listening to the poetics and politics of sound histories.” ―Steven Feld, Anthropologist and Sound Artist, School for Advanced Research, USA

“Amplifications shows why Paul Carter is one of the most respected artist-theorists in the world today, and one of the most arrestingly original and formative thinkers in and about sound of the last three decades. Amplifications offers a highly original way of constructing a philosophy of sound, by interweaving autobiography, autocriticism and the practice of sound art, and builds a complete politics of sound around the principle of echo. It offers a brilliantly new and suggestive model both for the writing of life-history and for auditory philosophy.” ―Steven Connor, Professor of English and Director of CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities), Cambridge University, UK

About the Author

Paul Carter is Professor of Design at RMIT University, Australia. He is the author of many books including The Road to Botany Bay (1987), Living in a New Country (1992), Repressed Spaces (2002), Dark Writing (2008), Meeting Place (2013), and Places Made After Their Stories (2015).