While we’ve applauded recent moves in art history and media studies challenging the hegemony of the visual, why does the waxing art world topicality of “listening” seem to be inversely proportional to sound practitioners’ waning interest in it? Does it really have to turn up on e-flux before people pay attention? Haven’t musicians, composers, and sound artists all over the world been thinking listening for centuries?… The contributors to Issue 2 face the immense material complexity of listening head on – physically, technically, formally, politically, socially. Their contributions continually orbit the question, ‘What is Listening?,’ all the while deftly dodging all ...

For this piece, I created a foundation – or “backing track” – that can be used for a variety of playback scenarios. It incorporates on-site recordings and excerpts of cassettes and audio files from my personal archive, including: crowd noise (date and time unknown), guitar and tape recordings (2006 or 2007), synthesizer and electronics (2008), percussion / loop cassettes (2007), and recordings of live noise shows (artists unknown, circa 2008). Preference was given to sounds of an unknown or barely remembered origin. These audio clips were mixed with recorded ambiences from a visit to Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia on the afternoon ...

Computer Program as an Artefact At first, the computer program is neutral and exists only in terms devoid of any reference other than to itself. The program is its function. It is a tool. It does something; it instructs a computer to perform a task. Its working is often imperceptible beyond the surface of its interface – screen based or physical – the material extension to the inner depths of its digital structure, the code. Focusing solely on a functional aspect of software limits our engagement with its wider assemblage of connotations beyond technical analysis. Beyond the functional and ostensible neutrality ...