Editor's Introduction, Somaesthetics of Noise

Abstract

Somaesthetics of noise recognizes noise as a somatic phenomenon that extends beyond the auditory, affecting us in most realms of experience. Noise is heard, and it is also felt through vibration, pressure, irritation, disturbance, interruption, fatigue, excitement, and sometimes pleasure. It can unsettle attention, reorganize bodily orientation, thicken atmosphere, and expose the limits of perception. For the most part, noise has been a largely unexplored source for somaesthetic inquiry. If somaesthetics examines the soma as a medium of sensory appreciation, self-cultivation, communication, and world-disclosure, then noise directs our attention to those moments when embodied experience becomes excessive, difficult, unruly, or resistant to immediate assimilation.

The essays and interviews gathered in this volume approach noise in an expansive somaesthetic sense. Some focus on explicitly sonic practices, including experimental music, noise performance, and sound poetry. Others extend noise beyond the auditory, considering restlessness, bodily interference, atmospheric disruption, and the governance of embodied presence. In all these contributions, noise is what urges renewed attention to the conditions through which meaning, sensation, and social order are formed. Noise can overwhelm and disrupt, but it can also attune and help us refocus. It can produce discomfort, but discomfort often stimulates inquiry. It can be treated as disorder by institutions, but it can also become a resource for resistance, self-stylization, and shared experience.