FAV149 Noise in Media History

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2009
Extent and Intensity
0/2/0. 3 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
doc. Mgr. Petr Szczepanik, Ph.D. (seminar tutor)
Guaranteed by
prof. PhDr. Jiří Voráč, Ph.D.
Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Tue 15:00–16:35 L10
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 20 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/20, only registered: 0/20, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/20
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 14 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
Noise has its specific mediality and historicity: According to M. Serres, noise is an empirical domain of any message, in certain sense it’s a medium itself. Media reveal their mediality through specific disturbances: crackling of gramophone disc, „static“ in radio, nonsynchronicity of image and sound in talkies, “hiss” of magnetic tapes, “snowing” in TV, etc. The development of media technology from phonograph to Dolby Stereo is directed by the efforts to reduce undesirable noises. But in communication we can distinguish noise from the signal only retrospectively and noise can always be turned to signal again: What was once background noise, or chaos, often becomes signal for the next generation. From a historical perspective, acoustic noise had not been analyzable until the first recording devices were invented in 19th century (except by human memory and voice). In traditional historical accounts, sound was reduced to language and music. With introduction of sound media, the soundscape of everyday life became recordable, transmittable and manipulable in a similar way as the visual forms, and the new possibilities for sound history and sound art emerged. Course objectives: better understanding of specific manifestations of media materiality and of communication noise in the history of audiovisual culture.
Syllabus
  • Teoretical introduction: key concepts (noise, materiality of media etc.), theoretical conceptions of noise (McLuhan, Serres, Sterne etc.).
  • Case studies: noise in sound recording and music, visual arts, film, television, digital media.
Literature
  • Albert Kümmel – Erhard Schüttpelz (eds.), Signale der Störung. München: Wilhelm Fink 2003;
  • Michel Serres, The Parasite. Baltimore – London: The John Hopkins University Press 1982;
  • STERNE, Jonathan. The audible past : cultural origins of sound reproduction. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003, xvi, 450. ISBN 9780822330134. info
  • THOMPSON, Emily Ann. The soundscape of modernity : architectural acoustics and the culture of listening in America, 1900-1933. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002, ix, 500. ISBN 0262201380. info
  • ATTALI, Jacques. Noise : the political economy of music. Edited by Fredric Jameson - Susan McClary, Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985, xiv, 179. ISBN 9780816612864. info
Teaching methods
seminar
Assessment methods
Elective seminar, credit. Assessment - colloquium: practical task of solving concrete problem (case study in a form of essay 5 pages long).
Language of instruction
Czech
Further Comments
The course can also be completed outside the examination period.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
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