The Hidden Power of Noise
Bridget Kendall and guests writer Garret Keizer, sound artist Jana Winderen and professor of English Steven Connor discuss the often unnoticed power that noise has over us.
Bridget Kendall and guests explore the unseen and often un-noticed power which noise has over us. With writer Garret Keizer, who is interested in the social and economic dimensions of noise; sound artist Jana Winderen who records sounds made by underwater creatures; and Cambridge Professor of English Steven Connor who focuses on the 'ums, ahs, ohs, and ahems', expressive language noises that are often dismissed as marginal or trivial.
Garret Keizer
Garret Keizer, the author of 鈥楾he Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want鈥�, has been pondering what noise says about human relationships: who gets to make noise, who gets heard and who gets to complain about excessive noise. And also: whether the poor and powerless are exposed to more noise pollution than the wealthy.
Jana Winderen
Norwegian sound artist Jana Winderen travels the world with four hydrophones, recording sounds made by underwater creatures. She then plays the sounds of, say, cod communicating with each other, to her friends before dinner. She says that some people change their mind about eating fish after they鈥檇 heard them talking to each other.
Steven Connor
Steven Connor is Grace 2 Professor of English at Cambridge University where his research is focussed on the literature and culture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as well as the history of sound, voice and auditory media. In 鈥楤eyond Words: Sobs, Hums, Stutters and other Vocalizations鈥� he probes the fringes and limits of human language to challenge our basic assumptions about what it is to communicate and where meaning lies in language.
