Soundscapes of the Urban Past: Staged Sound as Mediated Cultural Heritage

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Karin Bijsterveld
transcript Verlag, Apr 30, 2014 - Music - 230 pages
We cannot simply listen to our urban past. Yet we encounter a rich cultural heritage of city sounds presented in text, radio and film. How can such »staged sounds« express the changing identities of cities? This volume presents a collection of studies on the staging of Amsterdam, Berlin and London soundscapes in historical documents, radio plays and films, and offers insights into themes such as film sound theory and museum audio guides. In doing so, this book puts contemporary controversies on urban sound in historical perspective, and contextualises iconic presentations of cities. It addresses academics, students, and museum workers alike. With contributions by Jasper Aalbers, Karin Bijsterveld, Carolyn Birdsall, Ross Brown, Andrew Crisell, Andreas Fickers, Annelies Jacobs, Evi Karathanasopoulou, Patricia Pisters, Holger Schulze, Mark M. Smith and Jonathan Sterne.
 

Selected pages

Contents

Introduction
11
Shifting Sounds Textualization and Dramatization of Urban Soundscapes
31
Why Historians of the Auditory Urban Past Might Consider Getting Their Ears Wet
67
Sounds Familiar Intermediality and Remediation in the Written Sonic and Audiovisual Narratives of Berlin Alexanderplatz ...
77
The Chirping of a Little Bird Some Film Theoretical Reflections
117
Sonic Artefacts Reality Codes of Urbanity in Early German Radio Documentary
129
Radio Documentary and the Formation of Urban Aesthetics
169
Soundscape Landscape Escape
181
The Corporeality of Listening Experiencing Soundscapes on Audio Guides
195
The Eleventh of the Eleventh of the Eleventh The Theatre of Memorial Silence
209
Authors
221
List of Illustrations
227
Copyright

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About the author (2014)

Karin Bijsterveld is a historian and Professor of Science, Technology and Modern Culture at Maastricht University, Netherlands. Her research focuses on technological cultures of sound. She co-edited the »Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies« (together with Trevor Pinch).

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