Bøger i Urbanomic / Redactions serien

Explorations of the audio essay as medium and method.With contributors including Justin Barton, Angus Carlyle, Kodwo Eshun, Steve Goodman, Robin Mackay, Paul Nataraj, and Iain Sinclair, Sonic Faction presents extended lines of thought prompted by two Urbanomic events which explored the ways in which sound and voice can produce new sensory terrains and provoke speculative thought.Three recent pieces provide the catalyst for a discussion of the potential of the "audio essay" as medium and method, a machine for intensifying listening and unsettling the boundaries between existing forms: documentary, music, ambient sound, audiobook, field recording, radio play….Kode9’s Astro-Darien (2022) is a sonic fiction about simulation, presenting an alternative history of the Scottish Space Programme, haunted by the ghosts of the British Empire. Justin Barton and Mark Fisher’s On Vanishing Land (2006) is a dreamlike account of a coastal walk that expands into questions of modernity, capitalism, fiction, and the micropolitics of escape. Robin Mackay’s By the North Sea (2021) is a meditation on time, disappearance, and loss as heard through the fictions of Lovecraft, Ccru, and the spectre of Dunwich, the city that vanished beneath the waves.Alongside photographic documentation of the events and edited transcripts of the artists’ discussions, Sonic Faction brings together contributors with diverse perspectives to address the question of the audio essay and to imagine its future.ContributorsLawrence Abu Hamdan, Lendl Barcelos, Justin Barton, Ben Borthwick, Angus Carlyle, Matt Colquhoun, Jessica Edwards, Kodwo Eshun, Steve Goodman, Ayesha Hameed, Eleni Ikoniadou, Lawrence Lek, Robin Mackay, Paul Nataraj, Emily Pethick, Iain Sinclair, Shelley Trower

A geophilosophical odyssey through the remains of Cornwall''s industrial past offers a historical portrait of geotrauma in action.This unique document provides a pioneering case study in post-“site-specific” geophilosophy. Based on a weird field trip into Cornwall''s mining heartlands with geologists, philosophers, and ecologists as guides, Hydroplutonic Kernow drills down through nature, industry, and cultural capital to site the local within the global, unfolding the telluric plots that manipulated populations and devastated the landscape during the industrial age. In doing so, it provides a historical portrait of geotrauma in action.This geophilosophical odyssey takes us through the remains of the region''s industrial past, reading them through the twisted prism of the geocosmic theory of trauma espoused by legendary “cryptographer” Dr. Daniel Barker and further developed by Iranian philosopher Reza Negarestani, and uncovering the deep plot of the Hydroplutonic Conspiracy, the collusion between water and the depths of the earth.Along with full documentation of the trip, the book also contains exegetical materials including an essay by Reza Negarestani, a poem by Jake Chapman, a preface by Caitlin DeSilvey, and an in-depth interview with Mining Engineer Steve Tarrant.

An examination of the new technological mediations between the human sensorium and the planetary media network and of the aesthetic as an enabler of new modes of knowledge.