{"title":"Sonic Cyberfeminisms, Perceptual Coding and Phonographic Compression","authors":"Robin M. James","doi":"10.1177/0141778920973208","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"I argue that sound-centric scholarship can be of use to feminist theorists if and only if it begins from a non-ideal theory of sound; this article develops such a theory. To do this, I first develop more fully my claim that perceptual coding was a good metaphor for the ways that neoliberal market logics (re)produce relations of domination and subordination, such as white supremacist patriarchy. Because it was developed to facilitate the enclosure of the audio bandwidth, perceptual coding is especially helpful in centring the ways that patriarchal racial capitalism structures our concepts and experiences of both sound and technology. The first section identifies sonic cyberfeminist practices that function as a kind of perceptual coding because they subject ‘sound’ and/or ‘women’ to enclosure and accumulation by dispossession. The second section identifies a type of sonic cyberfeminism that tunes into the parts of the spectrum that this perceptual coding discards, building models of community and aesthetic value that do not rely on the exclusion of women, especially black women, from both humanist and posthuman concepts of personhood. Here I focus especially on Alexander Weheliye’s ‘phonographic’ approach to sound, technology and theoretical text. This approach, which he develops in his 2005 book of that title and in recent work in collaboration with Katherine McKittrick, avoids fetishising tech and self-transformation and focuses on practices that build registers of existence that hegemonic institutions perceptually code out of circulation. I conclude with examples of such phonographic compression, including Masters At Work’s ballroom classic ‘The Ha Dance’ and Nicki Minaj’s ‘Anaconda’.","PeriodicalId":47487,"journal":{"name":"Feminist Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0141778920973208","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Feminist Review","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0141778920973208","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"WOMENS STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
I argue that sound-centric scholarship can be of use to feminist theorists if and only if it begins from a non-ideal theory of sound; this article develops such a theory. To do this, I first develop more fully my claim that perceptual coding was a good metaphor for the ways that neoliberal market logics (re)produce relations of domination and subordination, such as white supremacist patriarchy. Because it was developed to facilitate the enclosure of the audio bandwidth, perceptual coding is especially helpful in centring the ways that patriarchal racial capitalism structures our concepts and experiences of both sound and technology. The first section identifies sonic cyberfeminist practices that function as a kind of perceptual coding because they subject ‘sound’ and/or ‘women’ to enclosure and accumulation by dispossession. The second section identifies a type of sonic cyberfeminism that tunes into the parts of the spectrum that this perceptual coding discards, building models of community and aesthetic value that do not rely on the exclusion of women, especially black women, from both humanist and posthuman concepts of personhood. Here I focus especially on Alexander Weheliye’s ‘phonographic’ approach to sound, technology and theoretical text. This approach, which he develops in his 2005 book of that title and in recent work in collaboration with Katherine McKittrick, avoids fetishising tech and self-transformation and focuses on practices that build registers of existence that hegemonic institutions perceptually code out of circulation. I conclude with examples of such phonographic compression, including Masters At Work’s ballroom classic ‘The Ha Dance’ and Nicki Minaj’s ‘Anaconda’.
我认为,以声音为中心的学术对女权主义理论家来说是有用的,前提是它始于非理想的声音理论;这篇文章发展了这样一个理论。为了做到这一点,我首先更充分地阐述了我的主张,即感知编码是新自由主义市场逻辑(重新)产生统治和从属关系的一个很好的隐喻,比如白人至上主义父权制。因为它是为了方便音频带宽的封闭而开发的,所以感知编码特别有助于集中父权制种族资本主义构建我们的声音和技术概念和体验的方式。第一部分确定了声音网络女权主义实践,这些实践是一种感知编码,因为它们通过剥夺“声音”和/或“女性”来封闭和积累。第二部分确定了一种声音网络女权主义,它融入了这种感知编码所抛弃的部分,构建了不依赖于将女性,尤其是黑人女性排除在人道主义和后人类人格概念之外的社区和美学价值模型。在这里,我特别关注亚历山大·韦赫利耶对声音、技术和理论文本的“留声机”方法。这种方法是他在2005年出版的同名书中以及最近与凯瑟琳·麦基特里克合作的作品中发展起来的,避免了对技术和自我改造的恋物癖,并专注于建立存在登记册的做法,霸权机构在感知上将其编码为不流通。最后,我列举了这种留声机压缩的例子,包括Masters At Work的舞厅经典作品《哈舞》和Nicki Minaj的《蟒蛇》。
期刊介绍:
Feminist Review is a peer reviewed, interdisciplinary journal setting new agendas for the analysis of the social world. Currently based in London with an international scope, FR invites critical reflection on the relationship between materiality and representation, theory and practice, subjectivity and communities, contemporary and historical formations. The FR Collective is committed to exploring gender in its multiple forms and interrelationships. As well as academic articles we publish experimental pieces, visual and textual media and political interventions, including, for example, interviews, short stories, poems and photographic essays.