List of Illustrations Acknowledgements The Clatter and Clang of Sound Affects Sharon Jane Mee (University of New South Wales, Australia) and Luke Robinson (University of New South Wales, Australia) Part 1: Start, Stop, Repeat Chapter 1. Silence Sandra Kazlauskaite (University of Lincoln, UK) Chapter 2. Shuffle Jim Drobnick (OCAD University, Canada) and Jennifer Fisher (York University, Canada) Chapter 3. Oriental Riff Runchao Liu (University of Denver, USA) Part 2: Voices and Vocals Chapter 4. aa ee ii oo uuuuu Rachel Shearer (Te Wananga Aronui o Tamaki Makau Rau/Auckland University of Technology, Aotearoa New Zealand) Chapter 5. Sympathetic Response Charlotte Eubanks (Pennsylvania State University, USA) Chapter 6. Whispers Christian de Mouilpied Sancto (University of Rochester, USA) Chapter 7. Sing Katherine Nolan (Technological University Dublin, Ireland) Chapter 8. The Disembodied Voice Julius Greve (University of Oldenburg, Germany) Part 3: Threshold Sounds Chapter 9. Tin/ny Rob Garbutt (Southern Cross University, Australia) Chapter 10. Vroom Andrija Filipovic (Singidunum University, Serbia) Chapter 11. Thump Andrea Avidad (New York University, USA) Chapter 12: Buzz Sharon Jane Mee (University of New South Wales, Australia) Part 4: Beyond Audibility Chapter 13: Inaudible Tremors Luke Robinson (University of New South Wales, Australia) Chapter 14: Distortion Greg Hainge (University of Queensland, Australia) Chapter 15. Feedback Manuel ‘Mandel’ CabreraJr. (Yonsei University, South Korea) Chapter 16. Sub-bass Aidan Delaney (Middlesex University, UK) Chapter 17. Squish, Squelch, Shlshlshlurpppp Norie Neumark (Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne and La Trobe University, Australia) Bibliography Mediography Contributors Index

We live in a saturated sonic envirornment. Noise is everywhere; and even at the extreme of absence, "silence is a rhythm too" (as the Slits once sang). Yet we rarely pay attention to the soundscape that accompanies us at all times. Sound Affects rectifies this omission, with seventeen essays about sound and how it touches and moves us. Topics range from rapping by Kanye West, to the noises made by urban traffic, to electronic distortions broadcast through gigantic speakers, to the barely audible squishes of worms crawling through the soil. All in all, this book brings us back to a heightened awareness of those aspects of existence that we tend, all too easily, to tune out.

Media not only determine our situation, as Friedrich Kittler has it; rather, our situation, our life, our thoughts only enfold and execute themselves within the medial field in the first place. Film-Philosophy has already shown that 'film thinks'. If we take this a step further, relating this approach to the whole range of media production, but also take a step back, and see what this approach basically means, we begin to see the seeds of a new Media Philosophy worthy of the name - not talking about media by way of 'philosophy proper', safeguarding disciplinary boundaries, but by realizing the philosophical qualities and impacts of each medium: it all starts from the assumption that our memory, perception, and thinking is not just a given, as an internal process that takes place behind the wall of our skull and is purely mental - there is always a 'material basis' of mediation. The thinking media series publishes original, innovative, and transdisciplinary monographs and edited collections that advance debates in the nexus of media studies, philosophy, and the 'new sciences' (such as cognitive neurosciences and complexity theory).