Situative Signals in Sonic Conflicts: An Anthropology of Sound Design
Carla J. Maier, Max Schneider, Holger Schulze · 2020
The implications and meanings of the sonic signals are generated within complex temporally, spatially and culturally specific situations. The sounds of the musical instruments and the noises of the car horn are only ostensibly invested with clear and unambiguous messages: reduced to its mere functionality as semiotic signals, the music represents traditional Turkish culture, and the car horns constitute mere auditory traffic signals. These sonic practices now challenge any signs status as a stable signifier. In order to explore how non-verbal functional sounds such as the car horn are invested with meaning, Indeed, sound design is not some ‘natural’, inherent human activity—it is a highly elaborate, artificial and precarious construction, which relies on innumerable cultural and technological requisites. It constitutes, and requires, a set of specifically shaped situations for listening, production and storage.