Static in the System: Noise and the Soundscape of American Cinema Culture (Volume 1) (California Studies in Music, Sound, and Media)

In this rich study of noise in American film-going culture, Meredith C. Ward shows how aurality can reveal important fissures in American motion picture history, enabling certain types of listening cultures to form across time. Connecting this history of noise in the cinema to a greater sonic culture,__Static in the System__shows how cinema sound was networked into a broader constellation of factors that affected social power, gender, sexuality, class, the built environment, and industry, and how these factors in turn came to fruition in cinema's soundscape. Focusing on theories of power as they manifest in noise, the history of noise in electro-acoustics with the coming of film sound, architectural acoustics as they were manipulated in cinema theaters, and the role of the urban environment in affecting mobile listening and the avoidance of noise, Ward analyzes the powerful relationship between aural cultural history and cinema's sound theory, proving that noise can become a powerful historiographic tool for the film historian. In this rich study of noise in American film-going culture, Meredith C. Ward shows how aurality can reveal important fissures in American motion picture history, enabling certain types of listening cultures to form across time. Connecting this history of noise in the cinema to a greater sonic culture, Static in the System shows how cinema sound was networked into a broader constellation of factors that affected social power, gender, sexuality, class, the built environment, and industry, and how these factors in turn came to fruition in cinema's soundscape. Focusing on theories of power as they manifest in noise, the history of noise in electro-acoustics with the coming of film sound, architectural acoustics as they were manipulated in cinema theaters, and the role of the urban environment in affecting mobile listening and the avoidance of noise, Ward analyzes the powerful relationship between aural cultural history and cinema's sound theory, proving that noise can become a powerful historiographic tool for the film historian. "Static in the System analyzes the relationship between American aural cultural history and cinema. Focusing specifically on the field of cinema culture...the envelope that surrounds and conditions our experience of cinema as an art form...Meredith C. Ward discusses how the aural culture of a given time period has enabled certain types of listening cultures to form. Analyzing which forms of listening have been dominant in various periods, she also discusses how noise...that commonly used but little-understood term...helps us to make sense of the ongoing conflicts underlying these moments, and where we have, historically, set the limits of 'desirable' and 'undesirable' sound"...Provided by publisher