Sinister Resonance : The Mediumship of the Listener – David Toop

Softback

272 pages

Continuum

ISBN: 9781441155870

Sinister Resonance begins with the premise that sound is a haunting, a ghost, a presence whose location is ambiguous and whose existence is transitory. The intangibility of sound is uncanny - a phenomenal presence in the head, at its point of source and all around.

The close listener is like a medium who draws out substance from that which is not entirely there. The history of listening must be constructed from the narratives of myth and fiction, 'silent' arts such as painting, the resonance of architecture, auditory artefacts and nature. In such contexts, sound often functions as a metaphor for mystical revelation, forbidden desires, formlessness, the unknown, and the unconscious.