CHAPTER I TOWARDS THEATRE NOISE Ross BROWN A broader concept of sound Meaning ‘vocal, non-vocal, musical and non-musical—along, sound's absen anticipatory buzz of stage silence—are elemental to the phenomenal fabric of theatre, But what is the broader id the phenomenology of acoustics or ly for “Theatre Noise’ at London Theatre Seminar, Senate y of London, November 2003of one’s ow tinnitus; own en a proliferation of uses of sound as ly known as ‘sonifications’ netface between humans and. contrivance and imbue its truth with fi For those who understand language, it has an evil tw modelled by called it) —a noiseless pl ‘© guarantee and police the corres interior representation and t (Crary 1996, 42-43). We wil different meanings, but here I mean disorderly nwanted sound: noise fi in a communications system. Then agai sound above mis in certain ci © boys’ anodyne blandness of Miles Davis think; mobile phones ‘going ‘These kinds of in several of 1d unruly sound; bad -ighbours; extraneous interference of the meanings ascribed 10 nces: that annoying te hell of ‘fun’ ringtones; the ), writes, for example, about id tribes in Papua New Guinea, and Towards Theatre Noise 3 many world religions and be ontological philosophies, which perhaps c¢ mystical or spiritual around the s ius” sixth century Pytha; hi (or resonate, through Renaissance art and in Shakespeare’. In cosmos and the human microcosm are connected in a universal sonic ecosystem. er_and__meaning_ and exchanged y ordered and unruly from the camera obscura of Enlightenment empiric ontologies, such as Boethius” valu but as the necessary condition within whi returns if left unchecked (as yer; no warmth was a crisis to in classical drama). Elsewhere there was the Upanishad mantra, is sound’ and accepted to be enet nada brakma), of © but many would cl cultural ped to, The categories 0 ‘music, noise, silenee—are not fixed but determined in the 2 See Lindley 2006, 30-50 and pas4 Chapter I ner. Here, then, we of hearing. ve phenomenology igence to conceive knew, in positing his famous ‘tree f conundrum, that vibrating air and sound are different things. Sound, is a ed phenomenon, nothing but subjective inference and any meaning subject, whose aural presence ‘mp3 data stream into sound, also has to mishear, and this 19 of sound. Noise is also in the here, to consider three aspects of aur -of-war between engage aradox of sonic objectivity and aural subject of tmmersivity (the buzzword of t le about how we hear. At some primeval stage of human evolution, hearing began as a whole- nin the environment. These eyed through the skeleton to a primitive ear, and thence to the brain, which gradually devel differentiate between frequencies and amplitudes of vibration and, from these differences, derive information from the environment that served as, is the universe, in all of its of far more comple, tive 10, discriminating of and literate in a world not only of sound, but of sounds—individual eveniobjeeis of varying degrees igs in the data stream or in the oped there was dual perceptual modes of given meaning in their eventu: ring of silent readi evolutionary adv ‘Towards Theatre Noise 5 listening and hearing in focusing and when ant sounds (to listen 's auditory software, In or Engagement and distraction In undertaking the psyel je process known as ‘scene analysis’ jes which paris of the complex ‘plenum’ of acoustic act ns on stereophonic differentials in timing and phase, and on ton. ide variations, but it also draws intelligence from the other particularly vision. It 1e brain is looking for or try jous paragraph that the brain ‘apparently e brain continues a surrounding field of noisy acoust stening is an a& that makes an event-object of the focus of its attention, but hearing, in logy, runs in the back; ing the user to certain programmed categories of event: the breab in the6 Chapter I Aural paradox awareness of background ambience such as birdsong or to isolate and thus ot blurring the others logic tends to be conceived not in auditory, but in visual tropes, where things are far more straightforward Towards Theatre Noise heteal trip or Immersivity sound’ evokes some kind of Web structures, interactive en' and so on. I am not sure that theatre companies suct ‘mean to invoke aural subject brand of theatre, nor that as Puncl architecture and the development o was also representing a reorganised model of subject resonance of the arena gave way to an increasingly rectilinear ‘here an from one general end-on aspect—a trope of the camera obscura as a place ‘model strikingly similar to Loch(Crary 1996, 42), One might then consider the popularity of idophusikon, which i s “from without to their audience in jon of empirical ormance receded fro scene, auditoria began to darken and sic assumed an ever moi icken with fumes of | gy that was increasingly st sel 1983, 49-51), c att, whose ators of more far-reaching c\ trends, T would Petri dish where new cultural developm ‘And thus one might look at theatre's c and wonder of what it is redolent. A mode of ly assumes a detached perceptual posi inereby one warches is reminiscent ied story. Rather a multifari "them on their personalised promenades of participatory wer. This is not the 3D scope, which was a planar space activated by pi , but a surrounding n the introduction of surround sound barring seve th century—see Brown 2010 passim—became an increa ractice [rom the late 1980s onwards) Tandseape artist Claude Lorrain, ‘Towards Theatre Noise 9 the audience in noise from loudsp regardless of my protestations that they should position them careful use delay to ensure that the sound image remained properly located within en, and perhaps as sound designers we tiptoed over-respectful se years of exploding technolo; tradition of Tt was as ‘world at all distraction, Theatre, afterall, situates sen disposed to be distracted as we have seen, not onl ‘of noise-abating conventions, but in a silent crowd—wi calls “the great active silence [ ] whose inexpli setting, one’s body bristles in omnidires strangeness of the environment. Auditorium s le, whereas 1 hhullabal ith between wordplay 1999, 275-283). The three trumpet blasts that heralded the start of proceedings, followed byfrequ wiably into some kind of keynote sound moment (a tempest or a musical exposition) that drew the audience not only into the narrative, but into a sonic journey overture through a succession of flourishes, alarums, musical interludes, ee discharges and aur ues, t0 the finale and the release of mood changes and ‘on 10 today's audiences, ferent acoustemology and m purer, abstract dispensed wi , and perhaps in order to sé serious theatre’s increasing demands for si we rules speak of an something inevitable and benign. One sits une« e rules by coughing, scratching or stretchi swallowing and otherwise subjectively-contaminated flesh- e aperture sound stude of tackling dramaturgy that ness of their Why theatre noise? ‘There is a rapidly growing bibliography of pk henomenology, theses on soni soundscape studies and ac jory and ontology theories, cosn as communications, i 2002, 105-121; Brown 2010, 49-65; See Fo 99 passim. ‘Towards Theatre Noise u tum physics new understandings and ways but not yet ready to be wi 1 across all of these contexts, from the thunder machines of cl: to the Sex Pistols, a superstring. My concept of tre should feature prom c, sound, noise and silence to king. Somewhere among ry of noi governing conv play of the interactions corporeal subject more than any other. I sketch out here is not by any instead it seeks to establish a broader ‘The annoyance of 1d whispering that ng trend for ing their phones on ( applause), has itse ium noise (and of public bullyi nat provocatively, informs tuting, theatregoers that theatre’s meaning is contingent on such the risk of it. It is also body and the environment. It hopes for a more am! theatre must only be experienced in its own sounding or app: ‘bemused by white-walled gal that hope to c ‘material presence with lighting and pretending to be quiet which are all the more noisy fetishise and e music does; th2 Chapter 1 s active within the meaning of any momet oment in which art is being perceived. As of percept Serres says, in the object. There is in the observer, Inthe tran f the channel. There is T think ther ftidge or the sound beyond both the imagination and or other profound states of the suk References Attali, Jacques. 1985. Noise: The Political my of Music. of Minnesota Press, Brown, Ross. 2010. Sound: A Reader in Theatre Practice. Hounk Palgrave. Cox, Christopher and Daniel Warner (eds. Readings in Modern Music. New York: Continuum, Crary, Jonathan 1996. The Techniques of the Observer. Cambridge (MA) 1d London: res: Essays on Sound, Listening ‘and Modernity. Oxford & New York: Ber; Places Sensed, Reader, edited by David Howes, 179-191 Oxford and New ‘York: Berg, Ikerth, Wes, 2002, Hegarty, Paul. 2007. Kal LaBelle, Brandon. 2006. Backgrow New York: C Lindley, Davi Noise, Perspectives on Sound Art, takespeare and Music. London: kespeare. The C Thomson Those Who Have Nothing University Press. To rds Theatre Noise 3 3333235 (accessed February 1, http:/hal.handle.nev/2027/mdp. 2011). Meisel, Martin. 1983. Realizations: Narrative, Pictorial and Theatrical in Nineteenth-Century England. Princeton, NJ: Princeton O'Callagahn, C. Oxford Univ | Theory. Oxford: 66, No. et. 471-490, Dan, 1999, 1956 and All That: the Making of Modern British Theatre, Lot Sertes, Michel. 1995. Genesis. Trans. James, G. and Ni of Michigan Press,