Urban Roar: A Psychophysical Approach to the Design of Affective Environments

201 Pages·2022·8.985 MB·English

by  Jordan Lacey

Urban Roar
ii
Urban Roar
A Psychophysical Approach to the Design
of Affective Environments
Jordan Lacey
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
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BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in the United States of America 2022
Copyright © Jordan Lacey, 2022
For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xii constitute an extension
of this copyright page.
Cover design by Louise Dugdale
Cover image © stocklapse/iStock
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lacey, Jordan, author.
Title: Urban roar : a psychophysical approach to the design of affective
environments / Jordan Lacey.
Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2022. | Includes bibliographical
references and index. |
Summary: “Offers new insights, tools, and methodologies for the design of urban
environments in relationship to noise and sound”– Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021042179 (print) | LCCN 2021042180 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501360572
(hardback) | ISBN 9781501360565 (paperback) | ISBN 9781501360589 (epub) |
ISBN 9781501360596 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501360602 (ebook other)
Subjects: LCSH: Soundscapes (Music)–Philosophy and aesthetics. | Sound installations
(Art) | Music and architecture. | Affect (Psychology) | City sounds. | City planning.
Classification: LCC ML3877 .L3205 2022 (print) | LCC ML3877 (ebook) |
DDC 780/.071–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021042179
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021042180
ISBN: HB: 978-1-5013-6057-2
PB: 978-1-5013-6056-5
ePDF: 978-1-5013-6059-6
eBook: 978-1-5013-6058-9
Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
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Dan, friend and explorer.
vi
Contents
List of illustrations viii
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xii
Introductory remarks 1
Part 1 Synchronistic becomings 15
Part 2 Transformative mediums 85
Part 3 Translating ambiances 121
Conclusion: On the oneness of experience 161
References 167
Index 177
Illustrations
Figures
1 A diagram of artistic flights 24
1a Rhythms of the striated and the smooth 29
1b The white wall of signification 34
1c The left and right lines of flight 48
1d The flow of autonomous affectivities 55
2 Psychophysical parallelism and the human mode 63
3 Locating ambiance, atmosphere and ambience within the
perceptual field 90
4 Locating fields of archetypes in relationship to the atmospheric field 102
5 A summary of the artistic research process and categories of
experience 122
Tables
1 Artworks with Medium Descriptions and Ambient Expressions 134
2 Categories of Experience and Themes in Artworks 138
3 The Distribution of Common Themes in Artworks 144
4 Artworks with Categories of Experience and Urban Design
Approaches 153
5 Design Sketches for Artworks: Themes with Urban Design Insights 156
Preface
The focus of this book is on sound, and the ways that this most malleable
of materials can be transformed via the artworks of sonic researchers and
practitioners. Its analysis is in the service of creating small, unassuming spaces
in cities that generate an expanded sense of awareness, and demonstrate that
we are more than who we think (or are told) we are. Its core concern is urban
transformation through a listening to what I will call the urban roar. However,
the arguments presented here are about more than just sound – they are relevant
to all atmospheric mediums and the ways in which they shape our perceptions of
the world. Furthermore, I am interested to explore psychophysical relationships
between the ‘inner’ world of the psyche and the ‘outer’ world of atmospheric
space in artistic research and urban design. To achieve this, I bring together
an unlikely pairing of two radical thinkers of psychotherapy, Félix Guattari and
Carl Jung. Following Guattari, this book investigates the mechanisms by which
controlling signifiers structure our experience by preventing our idiosyncratic
growth and entanglement, with the world. And, following Jung, I argue that our
inner worlds present pathways by which we can bypass such dictatorial sign
systems, even if only by virtue of the fact that the psyche presents itself uniquely
to each of us. In fact, our inner worlds, our psyche and dreams, may be the only
territories safe from the colonizing forces of capitalism (even if they might be
haunted by it), because their irrational and improbable occurrences cannot be
reduced to specific significations. I am not talking about dream analysis here
(which is a roaring – and sometimes dubious – trade) but, rather, the actual
experience of dreaming. For this reason, I am pleased to report that a dream had
a significant impact on certain arguments presented in this book, particularly in
relation to the concept and experience of synchronicity.
Before I describe this dream, I will make the point that if an author were to
discuss Gilles Deleuze without reading any Deleuze, it is likely that they would
not be taken seriously. Equally so, if an author writes about Jung’s ideas without
subjecting themselves to the very processes that Jung developed, which were
grounded in dreaming practices, then their understanding of Jung is surely
limited. My readings on Deleuze are certainly not as extensive as many of the
philosophers and theorists I encountered while writing this book, though I