Automated Subservience, Ubiquitous Control, and the Potentials of Sonic Practice
Article for in Kunstlicht 45:1/2 – Reverberant Ecologies: On the Relational Impact of Sonic Practices, ed. by Manuela Zammit (Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit, 2024). ISBN 9789083165783
ABSTRACT
Ubiquitous computing transforms and complicates how we engage with the environment with which we reciprocally produce subjectivity and make sense of life. With regard to the workings of present-day machines and machinic assemblages, and through the work of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Gilbert Simondon, this article discusses three sound installations made by the author in relation to the physical principles and philosophical concepts of modulation and transduction. It argues that modulation and transduction are inherently relational as these physical principles tend not to presuppose the existence of fully formed entities that pre-exist relations but rather imply an intermediate zone – an ongoing process of becoming or individuation. The installations explore the reciprocal relationship between bodies, machines, and associated environments by means of transduction circuits and modulation links which allow experimenting relational operations in a continuous process.
Many thanks to Manuela Zammit, Olivera Bucalović, Lisa Marie Sneijder, and others of the editorial team for their comments and suggestions. Special thanks to Đorđe Bulajić for the photos.
