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PhD ThesisThis thesis uses Baruch Spinoza’s notion of affect to critically rethink the correlation
between noise, ‘unwantedness’ and ‘badness’. Against subject-oriented definitions,
which understand noise to be constituted by a listener; and object-oriented
definitions, which define noise as a type of sound; I focus on what it is that noise
does. Using the relational philosophy of Michel Serres in combination with
Spinoza’s philosophy of affects, I posit noise as a productive, transformative force
and a necessary component of material relations.
I consider the implications of this affective and relational model for two lineages:
what I identify as a ‘conservative’ politics of silence, and a ‘transgressive’ politics of
noise. The former is inherent to R. Murray Schafer’s ‘aesthetic moralism’, where
noise is construed as ‘bad’ to silence’s ‘good’. Instead, I argue that noise’s ‘badness’
is secondary, relational and contingent. This ethico-affective understanding thus
allows for silence that is felt to be destructive and noise that is pleasantly
serendipitous.
Noise’s positively productive capacity can be readily exemplified by the use of noise
within music, whereby noise is used to create new sonic sensations. An ethicoaffective
approach also allows for an affirmative (re)conceptualization of noise
music, which moves away from rhetoric of failure, taboo and contradiction.
In developing a relational, ethico-affective approach to noise, this thesis facilitates a
number of key conceptual shifts. Firstly, it serves to de-centre the listening subject.
According to this definition, noise does not need to be heard as unwanted in order to
exist; indeed, it need not be heard at all. Secondly, this definition no longer
constitutes noise according to a series of hierarchical dualisms. Consequently, the
structural oppositions of noise/signal, noise/silence and noise/music are disrupted.
Finally, noise is understood to be ubiquitous and foundational, rather than secondary
and contingent: it is inescapable, unavoidable and necessary
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