Detta kandidatarbete undersöker Pierre Schaeffers (2012 [1952]) begrepp musique concrète samt dess metoder och tekniker. Musique concrète kan beskrivas som en samling kompositionsmetoder som utgår från inspelade ljud av omvärlden utan inblandning av musikinstrument, musikteori, eller ljud genererade från elektroniska källor. Vi använde Schaffers begrepp reduced listening, vilket är en lyssningsmetod där man bortser från ljudets källa och fokuserar på dess akustiska egenskaper, (vilket Michel Chion (1994) senare expanderade på). Jøran Rudi (2011) skriver om R. Murray Schafer’s begrepp Hi-Fi och Lo-Fi, vilket vi använde för att kategorisera ljuden som användes och platserna som spelades in. I designprocessen applicerade och experimenterade vi med metoder och tekniker från den aktuella forskningen för att utforska och dokumentera arbetsprocessen i gestaltningsprototyperna. Detta arbete resulterade i en samling kompositioner utefter Lo-Fi och Hi-Fi inom musique concrète där vi fick en bredare förståelse för de aktuella metoderna och teknikerna. / This bachelor thesis examines Pierre Schaeffer’s (2012 [1952]) term musique concrète as well as it’s methods and techniques. Musique concrète can be described as a collection of compositional methods that uses recorded sounds from the surrounding world as a startingpoint, without the use of musical instruments, music theory, or electronically produced sounds. We used Schaeffer’s term reduced listening (which Michel Chion (1994) later expanded upon). Jøran Rudi (2011) writes about R. Murray Schafer’s term Hi-Fi and Lo-Fi,and these terms were later used by us to categorise and record sounds from the environment. Investigation and experimentation with the various methods and techniques ensued in the design process in order to explore and document the work process of the prototypes. This process resulted in a collection of musique concrète compositions stemming from the Lo-Fi och Hi-Fi processes through which we gained more knowledge and understanding of themethods and techniques involved.

Denna studie har undersökt huruvida det är möjligt att träna sin hörsel i att lyssna analytiskt. Den har också syftat till att undersöka huruvida bilder påverkar hur människor identifierar och bedömer ljud. Efter en litteraturstudie samt en hypotestestande undersökning på området har jag sett tendenser som tyder på att det går att träna sin hörsel i denna typ av lyssning. Jag har också sett indikationer på att bilder kan påverka hur vi identifierar ljud.

Networks are an integral part of everyday life. Today, public concern with the extent to which they influence people’s routines, and how much they affect cultures and societies, has grown substantially. People are thus now engaging in conversations and movements to evaluate and address the biases and discriminatory behaviours to which networks contribute. The media play an important part in this conversation, often directing the discourse towards fears of technology. Although such concerns are very real, the stories that media circulate typically rely on the “magical” nature of networks and therefore accentuate their figurative power. But, for people to participate meaningfully in the conversation, and for them to approach technologies responsibly, they need access to the complexities and technical intricacies of networks, not just their surfaces or metaphors. This dissertation argues that, by listening to networks, people can begin to apprehend, and even comprehend, the complex, ostensibly “magical” nature of their communications. One problem is that listening semantically to networks is incredibly difficult, if not impossible. Networks are very noisy, and they do not, for instance, use alphabetic language for internal or external communication. Yet there are other ways to hear and interpret them. I argue that Michel Chion’s techniques of reduced and causal listening are two such ways, and that they afford a “sensible” and timely method for approaching networks. Of course, network communications must first be rendered audible to hear them. For this purpose, I propose “tactical network sonification” (TNS) as a methodology for Science and Technology Studies (STS). As this dissertation’s primary contribution to the field of STS, TNS focuses on making the materiality of networks sensibly accessible to the general public, especially people who are not technology experts. In so doing, TNS builds on the scholarship of not only Chion but also Beth Coleman, Matthew Kirschenbaum, Henri Lefebvre, Shannon Mattern, Shintaro Miyazaki, Pauline Oliveros, Rita Raley, and Jonathan Sterne in particular. This project finds that TNS results in crowded sound clips that represent the complexity of network infrastructure, through the many overlapping rhythms and layers of sound that each clip contains. It explains that sonifications may assist in creating multimodal network stories, making networks sensible and apprehendable. Finally, this dissertation proposes that using TNS can help understand potential discriminatory distribution of network infrastructure across communities. / Graduate / 2021-12-18