Acoustic Technics
By (author) Don Ihde
Publication date:
16 December 2015Length of book:
148 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksDimensions:
235x160mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9781498519236
Acoustic Technics opens with the 19th century discovery of radiation which exceeds our human bodily perceptual experience, light beyond light, sound beyond sound and on into what today we call the electromagnetic spectrum. Claiming a second scientific revolution through imaging technologies and drawing from both instrumental sensory mediation and animal studies, Acoustic Technics follows listening in its new forms into music, echo-location, infra and ultra-sounds, medical diagnosis, surveillance, and subsurface and interplanetary domains. Synthesized sounds, sonification, in both esoteric and popular technologies such as earbuds, cellphones, television are analyzed from a postphenomenological perspective.
While Acoustic Technics will be at home on shelves of readers already familiar with his work, it is a book that deserves recognition by a wider readership because the issues he raises concern us all. . . .Ihde draws on more than 40 years of careful thought and reflection about sight and sound in human experience and practice, and extensive and wideranging reading across both arts and sciences. This experience is evident in the breath-taking number of historical figures and topics that are covered within its 148 pages, from prehistoric rock art and Galileo the musician, to modern espionage, big data, and ‘radical’ new ways of detecting cancer cells. One might think that such coverage would lack depth but Ihde’s ability to step back from detail, distill information gained from a lifetime’s experience, and provide a framework within which it is possible to locate and critically examine past, present and (possibly) future technologies, negates any such thought. . . .Acoustic Technics is a slim volume...but it has changed the way I think about technology and it highlights the part we can all play in looking beyond the early hype of new inventions.