Sonic Transmission

Researchers rethink tactics for inventing and disseminating research, examining the use of such unconventional forms as poetry, performance, catalogs, interactive machines, costume, and digital platforms. Transmission is the research moment when invention meets dissemination—the tactical combination of making (how theory, methods, and data shape research) and communicating (how research is shown and shared). In this book, researchers from a range of disciplines examine tactics for the transmission of research, exploring such unconventional forms as poetry, performance, catalogs, interactive machines, costume, and digital platforms. Focusing on transmissions draws attention to a critical part of the research process commonly overlooked and undervalued. Too often, the results of radically experimental research methodologies are pressed into conventional formats. The contributors to Transmissions rethink tactics for making and communicating research as integral to the kind of projects they do, pushing against disciplinary edges with unexpected and creative combinations and collaborations. Each chapter focuses on a different tactic of transmission. One contributor merges literary styles of the empirical and poetic; another uses an angle grinder to construct machines of enquiry. One project invites readers to participate in an exchange about value; another provides a series of catalog cards to materialize ordering systems of knowledge. All the contributors share a commitment to uniting the what with the how, firmly situating their transmissions in their research and in each unique chapter of this book. Contributors Nerea Calvillo, Rebecca Coleman, Larissa Hjorth, Janis Jefferies, Kat Jungnickel, Sarah Kember, Max Liboiron, Kristina Lindström, Alexandra Lippman, Bonnie Mak, Julien McHardy, Julia Pollack, Ingrid Richardson, Åsa Ståhl, Laura Watts

An exploration of the production, transmission, and mutation of affective tonality—when sound helps produce a bad vibe. Sound can be deployed to produce discomfort, express a threat, or create an ambience of fear or dread—to produce a bad vibe. Sonic weapons of this sort include the “psychoacoustic correction” aimed at Panama strongman Manuel Noriega by the U.S. Army and at the Branch Davidians in Waco by the FBI, sonic booms (or “sound bombs”) over the Gaza Strip, and high-frequency rat repellants used against teenagers in malls. At the same time, artists and musicians generate intense frequencies in the search for new aesthetic experiences and new ways of mobilizing bodies in rhythm. In Sonic Warfare, Steve Goodman explores these uses of acoustic force and how they affect populations. Traversing philosophy, science, fiction, aesthetics, and popular culture, he maps a (dis)continuum of vibrational force, encompassing police and military research into acoustic means of crowd control, the corporate deployment of sonic branding, and the intense sonic encounters of sound art and music culture. Goodman concludes with speculations on the not yet heard—the concept of unsound, which relates to both the peripheries of auditory perception and the unactualized nexus of rhythms and frequencies within audible bandwidths.

Our studies of aesthetics and knowledge have long tended to privilege the visual - at the expense, Wolfgang Ernst argues, of the aural. 'Sonic Time Machines' aims to correct that, presenting a striking new approach to theorising sound that investigates its split existence: as a temporal effect in a techno-cultural context and as a source of knowledge and information. Ernst creates a new term for the concept at the heart of the book, "sonicity," a flexible and powerful term that allows him to consider sound with all its many physical, philosophical, and cultural valences.

Although the most sophisticated fault diagnosis and condition monitoring systems have their origin in the aerospace and nuclear energy industries, their use is by no means restricted to such areas of 'high technology'. Modern machinery in most industrial plants is now so complex and expensive that mechanics find it increas ingly difficult to detect failure by, for instance, recognising changes in sound 'signatures', and few plants can afford the luxury of regular 'stripping down'. Increasingly, therefore, eady-warning devices are being employed in an effort to prevent catastrophic breakdown. This book provides the first co-ordinated compilation of fault diagnosis and con dition monitoring devices. It proceeds in three logical steps. The eady chapters deal with those conditions which contribute to deterioration and the consequent likely development of faults. The middle part of the book considers the various tech niques of monitoring and discusses the criteria for their selection in different situ ations. The final chapters provide a guide to the interpretation of the information signals deriving from monitoring, relating to reliability science and the mathematics of probability, and thus providing decision data on which management can act.

With higher food quality in increasing demand by consumers, there is continuous pressure on food engineers to meet market needs. One of the critical challenges is to use modern technology and knowledge to develop new processes for improving food quality. Given the global food marketplace, there is also a greater need for a means of objectively classifying and differentiating foods. Physical properties, determined by measurable physical parameters, profoundly affect food quality and can be used for these determinations. Physical Properties of Foods: Novel Measurement Techniques and Applications presents a wide range of these practical, low-cost techniques to characterize physical properties without destroying the food. The book presents principles and measurement techniques, highlighting the latest methods and their ability to replace the traditional costly, time-consuming ones. It also covers the application of the measurements to classify and differentiate various foods, including fruits, vegetables, cereals, and dairy and meat products. The text gathers up-to-date procedures for determining the most important physical parameters that characterize food quality, many of which have not previously been sufficiently described in the literature, and delivers them in one useful volume. It includes methods based on a variety of technologies such as electronics, spectroscopy, mechanics, and acoustic response—which can be applied to a wide range of foods. With a focus on practical application of novel techniques, chapters specify method details, the type of food to which it has been applied, the accuracy, its ability to replace traditional techniques, as well as whether it can be installed on line. Written by internationally renowned engineers and scientists, this reference offers crucial information in an easily accessible format for engineers, researchers, and those in the food industry—all who will benefit from the cutting-edge practices described for measuring parameters that affect food quality and food characterization. The text is also an excellent resource for students and university researchers.

The weathering of historical buildings and, indeed, of monuments and sculptures of natural stone is a problem that has been encountered for hundreds of years. However a dramatic increase in deterioration in the structure of our built heritage has been observed during the past century. To understand the complex interaction that the stone in a building suffers with its near environment (the building) and the macro environment (the local climate and atmospheric conditions) requires an interdisciplinary approach and the application of many disciplines. Climate change over the next 100 years is likely to have a range of direct and indirect impacts on many natural and physical environments, including the built environment. The protection of our architectural heritage has both cultural and historical importance, as well as substantial economic and ecological value. Large sums of money are being spent world-wide on measures for the preservation of monuments and historical buildings. The past few decades has seen an unprecedented level of research activity in this area, the result of which is often difficult to access and are summarized in the new edition of STONE IN ARCHITECTURE. The 4th edition of Stone in Architecture: Properties, Durability, is a sophisticated and thorough exploration of stone – its properties, performance and conservation – in monumental contexts. The current editors, Siegfried Siegesmund and Rolf Snethlage, note the pioneering work of Erhard Winkler who wrote the first edition in 1973 when so little information could be found in the literature on the subject. This new edition, also published by Springer, nearly doubles the size of Winkler’s 1994 effort. If you are familiar with the field and need to know little more than this statement, you can put aside this review and go buy the book. George Wheeler, Department of Scientific Research, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

What is sound design? What is its function in the early 21st century and into the future? Sound Works examines these questions in four parts: Part 1, "Why This Sound?", presents an overview of the modern history of sound design. Part 2 is highly visual and provides a glance onto a sound designer's workbench and the current state of "Sonic Labor." Part 3 uses cultural analysis to explore our contemporary "Living with Sounds." The final and fourth part then proposes a series of anthropological and political interpretations of how “Sound Works” today. This book is not a manual on sound design; it instead argues for a cultural theory of sound design for sound designers and sound artists, for clients who commission a sound design and for researchers in the fields of sound studies, design research, and cultural studies