The Diabolical Symphony of the Mechanical Age:

Abstract

New technologies profoundly change our sonic surroundings, the world's soundscape. However, research dealing with the sound of technology is scarce within Science and Technology Studies (S&TS). This study argues that such a silence should be broken, since the sound of technology not only tunes our sonic environment, but has also been a highly controversial aspect of technology loaded with symbolic significance. Research into such a symbolism of sound enhances our understanding of the responses to technology-related changes in early 20th-century Western cities. The importance of sound will be made clear by discussing the historiography and anthropology of noise and silence, and by analyzing a crucial episode in the history of noise abatement in European and North American cities. By showing how the symbolism of sound influenced the noise abatement campaigns and the measures taken in response, the paper illustrates how the study of technological culture can be deepened by focusing on sound.

Noise: A category in futurist theatre and music

“…The significance of city noise to the human psyche cannot be underestimated. An Association for the Suppression of Street Noises, founded in the 1890s, wielded vigorous campaigns that were widely reported on in the newspapers of the times (Bijsterveld, 2003). A 1906 column in the Illustrated London News about the 'Nervous Age' reported that doctors were complaining to Parliament about the "injurious effects on the nervous system produced by the excessive noise of our streets" ( [Anon.…”

Arab sounds in a contested space: life quality, cultural hierarchies and national silencing

“…It is rooted in colonial ideology (that justified colonial domination in hierarchies of civilizedness) and, on a deeper level, in the old strategy of European elites to foster manners (Bourdieu's 'embodied cultural capital ' Bourdieu 1984, 70) as markers of status and justifications for class domination within Europe and colonial domination outside it (Elias 2000), framed in terms of culture versus nature (McClintock 1995). This identification of noise with those at the bottom of ethnic, national and class hierarchies, documented mainly for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Bijsterveld 2001;Vaillant 2003), still prevails, although it is disregarded. In contemporary Israel, loudness and specific sonic practices are thus ethnicized, used simultaneously to bolster both national boundaries and ethnic hierarchies among Israeli Jews (often by comparing Mizrahi Jews to Arabs).…”

Sounds Different

“…Such auditory practices were profoundly dislocated in the dawning of the mechanical age. In her study of noise abatement campaigns between 1900 and 1940, Bijsterveld (2003) highlights the extent to which manifestations of technology during this time drastically changed the sonic environment of Western societies. The ferocity of these campaigns evidences how profoundly disturbing industrial-era noise was, treated as a costly threat to the health and efficiency of urban citizens, which would surely "shorten the life of countless sufferers" (p. 174).…”