On Sonic Detection

Description

This panel explores sonic detection as critical fabulation.
We are familiar with a barrage of contemporary crises in representation, truth-telling, authenticity: fake news, media manipulation, break-down of trust in authority, information overload, the fraught politics of identity. How might (re)turning to performance complicate our understanding of the ways reality has been accounted for, what might we learn about sonic detection from the documentary format, from narration, from the crime scene, from the archive, from performance documents – and how might the comprehension of these items offer tools for collective and emancipatory production of new realities?
The term ‘sonic detection’ arises from a creative research project, Stolen Voices (2014-2019), undertaken by Collins & Linsley that investigated how listening can be used to understand the shifting identities of place. In four coastal locations (Bournemouth, Felixstowe, Seaham and Aberdeen) field work was conducted in the form of on-the-ground site investigations, listening workshops with local community members, archival research and interviews. Further research into the histories, industries and infrastructures such as seaside tourism, shipping container industry, coal mining and oil complemented these methods. Creative practice in the form of live performance and collaborations with composers
communicated these findings to local communities through the duration of the project. Sonic detection describes how listening, understood as an expanded practice sensitive to affect, atmospheres and the ‘extra sonic’, can be used to uncover and articulate the social, political, economic vectors influencing major events and everyday lives. The approach draws on the genre of crime fiction, emphasising that there is no single account, or perspective on the event(s) examined. Underlying is an implicit queer feminist methodology that is polyvocal and situated. The panel comprises three papers, each addressing a different factor influencing our comprehension of sonic detection: narration and voice (Linsley), site-specific performance practice and listening (Collins),
administrative documents and counter narratives (Pearce).

Period	6 Sept 2021
Held at	University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
Degree of Recognition	International