2008 Pop Conference Bios/AbstractsDaphne CarrDaphne Carr is a music writer, editor and scholar who writes about bad pop, hissing skree, art punk, psych folk, consensus rock and mainstream classical music. She is the editor for the Best Music Writing series and author of essays in
Listen Again (Duke University Press 2007),
Marooned (Da Capo Press 2007) and
Rock and Roll Cagematch (Three Rivers Press 2008).
Panel(s):ConflictedSaturday, April 12, 2008, 4:00 - 5:45
Moderator:Lunch Session - Feminist Working GroupFriday, April 11, 2008, 1:00 - 1:50
Abstract:"
Getting Closer: Extreme Loudness and the Body in Pain/Pleasure"
In her landmark essay "Music As Torture, Music As Weapon" Suzanne Cusick outlines how the U.S. military has developed and used acoustic weapons as a way to break down the psychological states of prisoners. This "no touch" torture can include high-pitched sounds, repeated sounds, sounds at random intervals, sounds that are "culturally" torturous, and extreme volumes of sound. In a prior essay, "Towards A Lesbian Relationship With Music" Cusick asks readers to think of the ear as another sexual orifice, to acknowledge the sexual pleasure of music, both actively and passively working with the body and mind. In combining these thoughts we might think of musical torture – the involuntarily exposure to sound – a form of sonic rape.
What if you ask for it? What if there were a mode of listening that found pleasure in the very aspects of sound that were, for some people, a form of torture? Would this listening be considered a form of aural masochism? My presentation will look at one genre of (un)popular music in which discourse about sadism and masochism have been explicitly identified – noise – and will address the practices of listening and feeling extreme volumes of sound in this genre. I will revisit interlocutors from my 2002 EMP Providence noise scene paper as well as conduct interviews with New York City noise musicians and fans. Using Elaine Scarry's work on masochism in performance art as a model, I also intend to draw from conversations with (or texts written by) amp builders, psychoacousticians, pain specialists, sex-positive feminists and self-identified ("out") masochists to attempt to create a web of possible meanings for the voluntary bodily practice of getting close to an extremely loud noise-spewing amplifier with little or no protection. Many writers have focused on what that moment sounds like or how it means in culture, but I am wondering how does it make the body feel?
