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Anacoustic Modes of Sound Construction and the Semiotics of Virtuality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2020

Robert Seaback
Robert Seaback*
Affiliation:
Dakota State University, Madison, SD, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article discusses technical and aesthetic aspects of sound synthesis in the context of anacoustic modes of sound construction – a neologism that underscores the unique ontology of information in the digital domain. Anacoustic modes address the computer at its most fundamental level: the syntactic level of information. This changes the nature of signification as sound is considered first as an informational construct rather than a material circumstance, rupturing the front-loaded meaning that arises from our acoustic experience. Following certain concepts encompassed by N. Katherine Hayles’s posthumanism, anacoustic modes can be viewed as an expression of the materiality of information.

Type
Articles
Information
Organised Sound , Volume 25 , Issue 1: Computation in the Sonic Arts , April 2020 , pp. 4 - 14
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Copyright
© Cambridge University Press, 2020

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