The Dimension of Sound in Flusser: Implications for a Sonic Media Archaeology

This paper unearths a hitherto neglected sonic dimension within Vilém Flusser's work. It fuses one of his few essays on the auditive, “the gesture of listening to music,” with his predominantly visually thesis of a “crisis of linearity,” which is read as a powerful media-philosophical and epistemological model. Instead of viewing Flusser's ocularcentrism in the “crisis of linearity” as a shortcoming, Flusser's work on sound and music can be applied to speculate on the radical potential of a sonic dimension in his media-philosophical model. Using the example of archaeoacoustics, I examine the gesture of listening as a challenge to contemporary epistemological paradigms, and assess its implications for a sonic media archaeology.