Mapping sound: creating a synaesthetic landscape
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 22/05/2016

A core principle of phenomenology states that as human beings we experience the world with all of our senses simultaneously. Merleau-Ponty (1962) describes this process as synaesthesia, literally all sensations together. No one hears a sound removed from touch and vision, and no one sees an object divorced from sound or spatial awareness. Since every human experience is a synaesthetic one, the analysis of the lived experience of an
archaeological site should be approached with this concept in mind.
Through the use of modern acoustic testing equipment including speakers, amplifiers and recording devices, archaeologists can experience how sound behaves in an archaeological setting and record the objective and subjective properties of sound in specific contexts. Yet in order to analyze the consequences of the interaction of sound and space, one must transform the sonic into the visual: the sound map. This paper explores the consequences of this transformation, what is gained and what is lost in this process of discussing and analyzing a sonic experience in purely visual terms.
Dianne SCULLIN (Columbia University, U.S.A.)