Sinister resonance: the mediumship of the listener

Sinister Resonance is an exploration of the ambiguity of sound and the uncanny nature of sound in listening practice. The book begins with the premise that sound is a haunting, a ghost, a presence whose location in space is ambiguous and whose existence in time is fleeting. A history of listening is proposed, constructed from narratives of fiction and myth, ‘silent’ arts such as painting, the resonance of architecture, auditory artefacts and nature.. In such contexts sound often functions as a metaphor fro mystical revelation, instability, forbidden desires, disorder, formlessness, the unknown, unconscious and extra-human. In particular, the book focusses on representations of listening in Dutch 17th century genre painting, notably the ‘Eavesdropper’ series of Nicolaes Maes, and on the supernatural fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood and others.

Sinister Resonance was launched as a CRISAP event at LCC by David Toop in conversation with Professor Caroline Evans of the London College of Fashion, 16 November 2010.