During the past months I translated three chapters from my book on noise to English. They form a part of the text that addresses the idea of an auditory field of the social that serves as a critical extension of the concept of the soundscape.

Transgressions: Noise and Violence

An introduction to the concept of auditory fields and the relations of noise, force and power in that field.

Ingressions: The Horror and Benefit of Silence

A critique of the discourse on silence that focuses on aggressive uses of quietness and the commodification of silence.

Delimitations: Music and Power

A historical sketch of the relations between power and music. Features Michel Foucault, Italian opera, castration and Muzak.

Crisis (as well as critique) stems from the old Greek κρίνειν (krínein), meaning „to distinguish, to differentiate” or “to separate”. The original meaning of apocalypse (ἀποκάλυψις) is „revelation, disclosure, unveiling”.

At least since the financial crisis of 2007-2008, crises have spread on a global level. Climate crisis, political crises, wars, refugee crises, pandemics etc. have become ubiquitous, are interlinked and seem to multiply by the month. If etymology is of any help in understanding the current situation, one could say that the concept of crisis is in crisis itself: if too many differentiations (between before and after, between ‘normal’ and ‘unprecedented’ etc.) happen at the same time, the terrain becomes unstable, confusing and seemingly undifferentiated. Crisis as something that forces a Kantian critique to its limits because reason is confronted with too many fault lines to distinguish between. The ‘new normal’ becomes its own ontology, leaving the old one behind, crisis becomes perpetual and tiresomely quotidian. When crisis becomes the mode of normalcy itself, something else happens: the gradual revealing of a different world we are all going to inhabit; apocalypse not as the end of the world itself but as the end of a certain way of living in this world, of viewing it, structuring it, giving it meaning and interacting with and within it. This apocalypse strikes hard in the places where a certain concept of ‘normalcy’ has been central for stabilizing the social, political and economical status quo (e.g. affluent, white, heteronormative etc.). The world (i.e. certain concepts of the world, ways of viewing and explaining it) is ending for sure, what is going to be unveiled will be the result of the struggles we are currently living through.

a text on the terminological aspects of noise (master-thesis, only in german)

Noise und die Differenzen des Negativen

noise [nƆiz]:
I. geräusch. in der abendländischen musik ein dem ton (abstrakter klang, kontingenter signifikant, zeichen auf notenpapier) und dem klang (als harmonisch/musikalisch empfundenes schallereignis) hierarchisch untergeordnete form des schalls.
II. lärm. als unangenehm empfundene und durch hohe schalldruckpegel potentiell physiologisch schädigende geräusche werden als lärm oder krach bezeichnet. die bezeichnung lärm wird auch als pejorativer ausdruck für gegen hörgewohnheiten verstoßende formen der musik verwendet.
III. rauschen. in der akustik das gleichzeitige auftreten aller hörbaren frequenzen, in der informationstheorie ein signal, auf welches das empfängersystem in keiner spezifischen, vorhersehbaren weise reagieren kann und das deswegen keine information überträgt.