Ubiquitous Listening: Affect, Attention, and Distributed Subjectivity

184 Pages·2013·0.98 MB·English

by  Anahid Kassabian

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Ubiquitous Listening
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Ubiquitous Listening
Affect, Attention, and Distributed Subjectivity
anahid kassabian
University of California Press
berkeley los angeles london
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University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2013 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kassabian, Anahid.
Ubiquitous listening : affect, attention, and distributed subjectivity /
Anahid Kassabian.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-520-27515-7 (cloth : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-0-520-
27516-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Music–Philosophy and aesthetics. 2. Listening. 3. Sound.
I. Title.
ML3800.K184 2013 781’.11–dc23
2012039945
Manufactured in the United States of America
22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible
and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on
Rolland Enviro100, a 100% post-consumer fi ber paper that is FSC
certifi ed, deinked, processed chlorine-free, and manufactured with
renewable biogas energy. It is acid-free and EcoLogo certifi ed.
Cover illustration: Hrayr Anmahouni Eulmessekian (with Anahid
Kassabian), Solemnity. Wall sound sculpture with video projection,
2010. Installation loop 58 min.; poetry by Nancy Agabian, Najwan
Darwish, Lola Koundakjian, Amir Parsa, Alan Semerdjian, Maral K.
Svendsen, Alene Terzian.
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction xi
1. ubiquitous listening 1
2. listening to video art and the problem of
too many homelands 20
3. “boom!” is the next big thing 33
4. musicals hit the small screen 51
5. improvising diasporan identities:
armenian jazz 73
6. would you like some world music with
your latte? 84
Conclusion 109
Notes 119
Works Cited 135
Index 149
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Acknowledgements
These acknowledgments are too long for a reason. Ubiquitous Music has
been a very long time in the making, and it appears in its current form
because a huge range of really fun and smart people have talked to me,
sometimes at great length, about the ideas that were driving me (crazy).
There are so many students and colleagues who should be named here
that I’m sure to forget some of them. My fall 2001 Film Theory seminar at
Fordham University (especially Brandi Fanning, Duane Loft, and Beatrice
LaBarge) helped to work out some of the issues in the fi lm chapter, and
my fi rst Reception Theory students at Liverpool helped me clarify some
thoughts in the last days of revision; a number of Armenian artists and
videomakers helped with the chapter on Armenian video art, especially
Tina Bastajian, Diana Hakobyan, Hrayr Eulmessekian, and Thea Farhad-
ian. The PhD reading group at Liverpool University that began in 2006
and is still going has been a source of genuine intellectual camaraderie and
inspiration, as has its counterpart at the Institute for Musical Research in
London. I am grateful to Tom Rea Smith for his eleventh-hour help with
the one musical example in the book.
Among the close friends whose work I admire, and therefore whose
input I rely on, even a brief list would include my colleagues at Fordham
and Liverpool; individually, Hrayr Anmahouni, Ian Biddle, Shay Brawn,
Norman Cowie, Thea Farhadian, Linda Garber, Freya Jarman, David Kaza-
njian, Marc Nichanian, Stephen Penfold, Amit Rai, Stephen Rubenstein,
David Schwarz, David Shumway, Fionnghuala Sweeney, and Allan Zink
have all made differences in my thoughts. Jonathan Sterne and Steve
Waksman, who were the readers of both the proposal and the fi nal draft
for the press (and who graciously revealed themselves as such), signifi -
cantly improved this book through their serious engagement with it, as
vii