"mapping the drone. sonic agents in urban soundscapes" by fritz schlüter (2011)
DESCRIPTION
The term soundscape, coined by Canadian musicologist and composer R. Murray Schafer, refers to the entirety of sounds being audible in a certain region. Opening up a lively discussion about an 'acoustic ecology' in the 1970s, the concept of the soundscape also helped to establish a new field for cultural-anthropological research. This paper focuses on the urban soundscape as far as it is shaped by engine and traffic sounds that are often referred to as 'noise.' As an analytical tool, I am providing a pragmatic concept of sonic agents which will be used in the following to denote all active contributors to a given universe of sound – be they human or non-human (or hybrid). What if we take this metaphor seriously and try to identify different species of sonic agents in the city? Further developing a term originally coined by Schafer ([1977] 2006), the most important sonic species in the city seems to be the drone, a sonic agent which is constantly generating a certain level of noise...TRANSCRIPT
Mapping the Drone.
Sonic Agents in Urban Soundscapes
by Fritz Schlüter
Published in:
Petr Gibas, Karolína Pauknerová and Marco Stella et al. (eds.) (2011):
Non-humans in Social Science: Animals, Spaces, Things. Cerveny
Kostelec: Pavel Mervart, p. 117-136.
ISBN 978-80-7465-010-9
Mapping the Drone. Sonic Agents in Urban Soundscapes
Fritz Schlüter
Abstract
The term soundscape, coined by Canadian musicologist and composer R. Murray Schafer, refers
to the entirety of sounds being audible in a certain region. Opening up a lively discussion about
an 'acoustic ecology' in the 1970s, the concept of the soundscape also helped to establish a new
field for cultural-anthropological research. This paper focuses on the urban soundscape as far as
it is shaped by engine and traffic sounds that are often referred to as 'noise.'
As an analytical tool, I am providing a pragmatic concept of sonic agents which will be used in the
following to denote all active contributors to a given universe of sound – be they human or non-
human (or hybrid). What if we take this metaphor seriously and try to identify different species
of sonic agents in the city? Further developing a term originally coined by Schafer ([1977] 2006),
the most important sonic species in the city seems to be the drone, a sonic agent which is
constantly generating a certain level of noise – may it be a refrigerator or other cooling system,
an internal-combustion engine or a neon light. If we understand the drone as a certain species
of sonic agents, its primary habitat would be the city. How to map their spatial distribution
across the urban fabric? And how to keep record of their behavioural patterns?
Some of the characteristics of sonic agents will be delineated on the basis of my own field
recordings – including the materiality of sonic events. Moreover, several visualization methods
will be considered as a means to study the urban drone – such as quantitative noise maps,
graphical time-cycles and traffic flow simulations.
Keywords: anthropology of the senses, field recording, material culture, noise, soundscape,
traffic, urban research
Mapping the Drone. Sonic Agents in Urban Soundscapes
Urban space can be thought of as a kind of hive, with a cellular social and physical ecology, that creates complex outcomes in terms of cyclical and spatially organised sonic geographies that flow, modulate, and change as the chronology of days and seasons pass. (Atkinson 2011, 25)
A cultural-anthropological investigation of the soundscape
What if a cultural-anthropologist in the field focuses his attention on what he can perceive with his
ears? How does a focus on aural perception affect the way we perceive our environment? And may this
sonic landscape not even serve as a distinct field for cultural-anthropological research?
The Canadian musicologist and composer R. Murray Schafer was among the first to think about
research in our everyday sonic environment. In his seminal book The Tuning of the World ([1977] 2006) he
investigates the historical changes of what he calls 'the soundscape.' Referring to the entirety of sounds
being audible in a certain region, the soundscape has become a key term in sound studies since then. As
Schafer observes, along with such major developments as industrialization and electrification, the sonic
environment of our cities has altered severely – and it continues to change.
Embedded in a greater Anthropology of the Senses more and more researchers are engaging with the
subject. Calling our attention to the transient sensuous qualities of our environment, the soundscape
makes up a promising field for cultural-anthropological investigation. This has been widely
acknowledged among sensuous anthropologists (such as Feld 1982, Ingold 2000, Herzfeld 2002, Atkinson
2007, Pink 2009, Spray 2011). A cultural-anthropological study of the soundscape calls basically for an
approach that uses multiple perspectives and methods such as field notes, sound maps, sound walks,
and field recordings.
With this paper I hope to provide some new insights concerning the topological features of our sonic
environment. First of all, I want to conceive sound sources as sonic agents rather, i.e., as active
contributors to the soundscape (section 3). This concept may serve as a methodological de-
familiarization of the everyday, helping to decipher the complex composition of the soundscape – in
particular where generalized as noise (section 2). In the following sections we will not only listen to the
urban drone (sections 4 and 5), we will also map its spatial distribution in the city (section 6). We will
chart some of its temporal patterns (section 7), and watch its spread across the globe (section 8).1
Noise is obscure
Studying the sonic environment I have to face one problem in every city, be it Lisboa, Gdańsk, London,
Prague, or Berlin: everywhere the urban soundscape is dominated by a certain type of sounds related to
1 The author would like to extend his thanks to Martha Blassnigg (University of Plymouth) for her invaluable advice.
traffic and transportation. The sounds of motor-cars, trains, or airplanes flood almost all open spaces,
thus masking the subtle voices of social interaction and even standardizing the soundscapes of different
cities. Usually we tend to classify these traffic sounds as noise. But what would be the consequence for
my field of research then? Labelling the vast majority of all sonic events in the city with a single term –
noise – does not seem to be appropriate for a thorough examination of the soundscape since it would run
contrary to any further analysis of these specific urban sounds. This is why I envisage a somewhat
different approach for the study of traffic sounds here.
Acoustician Karl D. Kryter defines noise as 'audible acoustic energy (or sound) that is unwanted because
it has adverse effects on people.' Those disturbances or annoyances are due to (1) inherently unpleasant
sensations of loudness, pitch, duration, and impulsiveness; and (2) interference with auditory
communications, sleep, work performances, etc. (Kryter 1994, 1). Many soundscape researchers concern
themselves with noise exposure in cities and its adverse effects on health (among others:
Chuengsatiansup 1999, Skånberg and Öhrström 2002, Öhrström et al. 2006) and I do not want to
question the sincerity of this dedication here. But frankly spoken, negative preconceptions about noise
are likely to obscure the ways in which it comes into existence.
Let me briefly refer to some examples to expound the problems of an unequivocal definition of noise. As
Karin Bijsterveld and others have shown, every assumption about noise draws upon a certain cultural
'symbolism of sound,' thus being part of a whole discourse about 'wanted' and 'unwanted' sound (see
Bijsterveld 2001, see also Payer 2007). This also comprises positive connotations of power and progress
with loud sounds or noise. Conflicts about noise, then, always involve certain ideological concerns. Even
R. Murray Schafer's groundbreaking soundscape study relied upon a somewhat ideological distinction
between pleasant, natural, 'hi-fi'-soundscapes on the one hand and annoying, urban, 'lo-fi'-soundscapes
on the other ([1977] 2006, 43ff). As sound artist Sophie Arkette criticises,
Schafer has envisaged clear-cut divisions regarding the separation of natural from man-made. But the distinction may not be as clear-cut as he might suppose. For example, the mobile phone is, under the Schaferian definition, classed within the man-made domain, while birdsong is classed in the natural domain. What happens when birdsong imitates mobile-phone jingles? (Arkette 2004, 162)
And one could add: what happens if mobile-phone jingles imitate birdsong? Moreover, noise is not
always 'unwanted' at all.
A motor-cyclist, for instance, does not involuntarily bear the misery of his noisy machine – quite the
contrary: the brute sound of his motor-bike appears to be welcome. Maybe we could even understand
the roar of his engine as an act of communication. With this instrument the motor-cyclist tries to
convey something – although this message may be as rough as a rebellious outcry.2 Obviously, what we
2 This is closely related to Ben Chappell's findings about the 'everyday cruising practices of lowrider car customizers' in Austin, Texas. Their unmistakable sonic presence in the streets also includes certain car honk patterns which are used as a sonic 'signature' to distinguish different 'clubs' of cruisers. Needless to say that this is also meant to serve as some kind of provocation. Local authorities in turn try to 'criminalize' the lowriders (Chappell 2010, 25f).
judge as noise is always dependent on our own point of view.
These few examples may serve as some proof that noise is a principally ambiguous concept. If we think
of market places, public crowds, subway stations, night clubs, and sports stadia – why do we still choose
to live in such noisy cities? However disturbing this particular mixture of sounds may be on the one
hand, it certainly belongs to the attracting forces of the metropolis on the other.
Without question, noise can be quite annoying or – as psychologist Detlev Ipsen puts it – involve an
experience of 'frustration': spotting those same traffic sounds everywhere may be comparable to
hearing 'the same story several times' (Ipsen 2002, 191). Now trying to veer away from those negative
connotations I began to look for some analytical tool that would help me to conceive traffic noise as
something new or unknown, as a rich and complex structure. With this chapter I am looking for a way
to tell this 'same story' differently. So first of all, who are the ones that perform and create the
soundscape?
A new concept: sonic agents
Highlighting the role of the active contributors to what is generally labelled as 'noise' means to partially
transgress the subjective – or even the anthropocentric – perspective on the soundscape. Although this
is not an actor-network study, I appreciate the capability of actor-network theory to create a certain
sense of constructivism, fluidity, and interrelations in all things – including the conceptual symmetry
between humans and non-humans.
If we hear a motor-car approaching, what do we hear? It is the drone of its engine, the sound of the
tyres on the street surface. From the perspective of acoustics we could describe this car as a sound source
with its own morphological characteristics, emitting sound that propagates into the environment. With
respect to the focus of this volume we could describe it as a human, a non-human, or a hybrid sound
source. But I do not concern myself too much with the ontological status of the sound source – in fact, I
want to go beyond the clear human/non-human distinction here. It is not the sound source as a
physical, compound object that I am interested in. I will rather focus on the sound itself.
If we hear the sound of an airplane, it is not 'the airplane' that we hear, we perceive certain patterns of
air vibrations. These air vibrations are the result of a complex intermingling of events happening inside
the airplane engine, between wings and air, dependent on size and speed of the airplane, on wind
regime and many other environmental features. What, then, is 'the sound source' here? Instead of
simply relating (or reducing) sound to a tangible, physical sound source I am more interested in the
specific form of energy that we are able to perceive as sound and how these sound fields are distributed
across space and time. Listening, then, is an encounter with someone – or something – that creates this
sonic energy – including airplanes, creaky windows, the rain, steam engines, crickets, and violins. This
is why I would like to call them sonic agents. In terms of sound, even engines or electronic devices
somehow seem to be awake, and I would argue that – besides physical movement – sound is a
characteristic that makes things seem to be alive. At the very moment a thing emits a sound, it seems to
gain a certain amount of vitality.
In fact, I consider the term 'sound source' – the technical term in acoustics – as hardly appropriate for
any cultural-anthropological study of the soundscape. As an abstract concept the term 'sound source'
tends to standardize sonic phenomena, treating sound as a rather passive consequence, a predictable
emergence of physical modalities. In contrast, the concept of the sonic agent emphasizes the active,
performative role that a 'sound source' plays. Sonic agents – whether human, non-human, or hybrid –
are the ones that actively shape the urban soundscape.
This concept may serve as a methodological tool for the de-familiarization of our everyday experience.
But what if we take this metaphor more seriously? What if we try to identify different species of sonic
agents and even study their behavioural patterns? In the following sections I would like to suggest some
new ways for studying the traffic, engine, and machine sounds that vastly dominate the urban
soundscape – that is in particular: the drone.
A particular sonic species: the drone
When the French philosopher Jean-François Augoyard and Henry Torgue, his colleague at CRESSON, 3
mention the drone effect in their encyclopedia Sonic Experience. A Guide to Everyday Sounds, they refer to a
sonic phenomenon created by an ensemble of distant sound sources (2006, here 40ff). The urban drone
for them is a continuous layer of noise, created by traffic and industry, that is, a certain level of low-
frequency sound that is prevalent in the background of the soundscape.
A field recording that I took on top of the tower of St. Mary's church in Gdańsk, Poland, in 2010 may
come quite close to what Augoyard and Torgue addressed with the drone effect: the tower is about 75
meters high. The microphone pointed to the sky so that it primarily recorded the indirect sound
reflections of the drone arising from the city below [Listen to the sound example The drone of
Gdańsk4].
Commonly known as a musical term, R. Murray Schafer was the first to mention the drone in relation to
the urban soundscape. Historically, this sonic phenomenon is relatively new. At the end of the 19 th
century new, more and more continuous sounds arise – such as the motor drone or the hum of electric
devices – which start to dominate the soundscape to this day: 'This [...] sound phenomenon, introduced
by the Industrial Revolution and greatly extended by the Electric Revolution, today subjects us to
permanent keynotes and swaths of broad-band noise, possessing little personality or sense of
progression' (Schafer [1977] 2006, 78).
3 Centre de recherche sur l'espace sonore et l'environnement urbain, Grenoble, France.4 [Listen to the sound example The drone of Gdańsk at http://sonicagents.wordpress.com/mapping-the-drone/ ]
Fig. 1: Graphic level recordings of typical flat-line and impact sounds according to Schafer ([1977] 2006, 79)
In comparison to sound events with longer histories – such as church bells, street vendors, the
hammering of a blacksmith, or horse carriages driving by – these new, homogeneous, and sustaining
sounds now were far more destined to merge and accumulate, thus creating a more or less diffuse 'noise
floor' (see fig. 1). As Bijsterveld puts it: 'The ambient level of noise increased in terms of decibels, and
was extended in terms of frequencies. Machines created ever-lasting, continuous noises: drones, the flat
lines in sound.' (2001, 37)
With the help of the sonic agents concept I propose to relate the term drone to the individual sonic
agent as well: neon lights, refrigerators, music boxes, or industrial plants, they all seem to possess a
certain sonic activity. When such a technical device is turned on, a sound field surrounding the sound
source is activated, making up a perceivable, sonic extension of the object beyond its physical
dimensions. This is the drone's spatial range, or sonic coverage. Depending on intensity and
environmental features, this area can be smaller or greater. Every sound source that constantly emits
such a certain level of noise – be it a refrigerator or other cooling system, or the engine of a car – can be
conceived as an individual drone. Monotony is what best characterizes the drone.
In addition to those stationary drones there are moving ones as well: if we hear a motor-car
approaching, what do we hear? First and foremost it is the drone of the internal-combustion engine in
combination with the sound of the tyres on the street surface. Usually, and particularly when
accompanied by other drones, the sound of the motor-car does not vary too much in its sonic
properties.
Listening to the drone
From a subjective listening perspective – being immersed in the urban soundscape – most of the drones
are arranged on a horizontal level around the listener. So when we hear a drone – or, indeed, several
drones – in the distance, it is almost impossible to discern them as separate sonic agents. They are
literally merged, creating an indefinable sonic haze somewhere out there. As the drones come closer,
they finally split into discernible sonic agents, passing the listener as individual drones. As they remove
themselves, they dissolve again, merging with the background drone of the city again.
The following sound example now explores drones from a different angle. The field recording results
from an ethnographic-artistic urban research and exhibition project, Sensing the Street,5 which was
conducted in Berlin from 2006-2008. Unlike the Gdańsk drone recording this field recording is radically
changed in duration as well as in tone pitch. These modifications are meant to contribute to the de-
familiarization of our everyday experience of traffic sounds. The recording has two parts: First, we hear
the recording replayed in quick motion. After 30 seconds, traffic sounds in slow motion will begin to tune
in [listen to the sound example Traffic noise, Berlin – time stretch manipulated6].
This recording may draw your attention to what could be called different patterns of the drone's
behaviour: in quick motion the traffic seems to turn into a bustling swarm of drones. You will notice a
certain temporal pattern which is actually triggered by the periodic changes of traffic lights.
Throughout the following sections we will further investigate such swarm-like behaviour of drones.
However, I would like to add some short remarks about the slow-motion part here that would possibly
pass unnoticed otherwise: with the recording replayed in slow motion, some subtle temporal patterns
are revealed, the stamping, hammering sounds of internal-combustion engines. Here, a certain
impression of what I would like to call the materiality of sonic events appears to be intensified so that this
slow-motion effect may best be comparable to a look through a magnifying glass. Let me elucidate this
in a few lines before we return to the major patterns of the drones. Sound – audible air vibrations – can
be apprehended as quite an accurate transmission of physical events. As Steven Connor puts it, 'we can
hear textures and qualities, or at least judge of them by their sounds, and we can thus hear the insides
of things, while we can only ever see their outsides' (Connor 2008, 2). First, by way of subtle frequency
patterns, sound indicates what materials were involved in creating the sonic event – say, a bell of
5 For online-documentation of this experimental project in Sensuous Anthropology, conducted by Prof. Rolf Lindner, see http://www.sensingthestreet.de
6 [Listen to the sound example Traffic noise, Berlin – time-stretch manipulated at http://sonicagents.wordpress.com/mapping-the-drone/ ] At the end of the recording there is a music-like pattern to beheard: an alternating linear fourth. It is a German ambulance siren, replayed very slowly.
bronze, or a wine glass. Even though those patterns might be too fast to be recognized consciously we
have learned how to interpret them. Second, sound does come in a sequential order, telling us quite
accurately about the temporal structure of the original event – like with three bell strikes, or a glass
hitting the floor and breaking into pieces. Curiously, even with the recording speed manipulated, a
strong impression of a materiality of these sounds persists, although it has changed to a certain extent.
In this case, the time stretch manipulation may even serve as some kind of sonic archaeology: listening
to the traffic sound in slow-motion we come to realize that somewhere deep inside the most recent
internal-combustion engines there still is an ancient single cylinder beating the time. And finally,
listening to the first deep horn blast in this recording, we also become aware that the ordinary signal-
horn of a car relies on the same functional principle as does a ship's horn: it merely differs in size.
But let us return to the drone and its macroscopic, swarm-like behaviour. How do drones contribute to
the 'sonic order of urban space' (Atkinson 2007), geographically as well as temporally?
Mapping the drone
Without doubt, motor-cars are among the most powerful sonic agents in the urban soundscape. Their
drone fills the street canyons and diffuses into the sky (see fig. 2). In such a way it contributes to a
persistent, widespread background noise level, perceptible even in the outskirts of a city.
Fig. 2: Propagation of traffic noise from a street canyon. Curves of identical sound pressure levels (Sedlbauer and Krus 2009, 139)
When mapping the spatial distribution of the drone across the urban environment we have to treat it in
a different way from tangible objects. Certainly the drone has some central, physical origin – i.e., the
sound source – but as a sonic phenomenon the drone is always spatially extended. It spreads across the
environment.
Surprisingly, some of the noise maps (see, for example, Defra 2007) recently developed by acousticians
may indeed display the geographical distribution of what I call the drone – at least to some extent. Since
the first noise measurements at the U.S.-American Bell Laboratories in the 1930s, increasingly
sophisticated methods have been deployed for an exact measurement and depiction of sound pressure
levels (for an overview see Kryter 1994 and Rossing 2007). Of particular interest to us are those noise
maps that are casting a bird's-eye view on the geographical distribution of noise sources – sometimes
even specifying different types of noise sources.
If you think of ships or airplanes, the automobile is not the only sonic agent responsible for the drone of
the city. Be they stationary or travelling, the drones add up to the overall noise level.
We always have to keep in mind that noise maps are based on average values of sound pressure levels,
representing different levels by different colours (Defra 2007). So they do not reveal too much about the
quality of the sounds measured. But if we consider these maps as a visualization of different sonic
agents with respect to their geographical distribution across the city, and if we assume that the drones
are making up the major part of the overall noise level in the city, these maps may be appropriate in
representing the spatial distribution of drones. We even get a notion of distinct pathways that are
frequently attended by travelling drones.
Since they are primarily responsible for the entire sound level of a city, I am particularly interested in
the behaviour of travelling drones in the city. However, many of the qualities making up the urban
soundscape are not included in noise maps – such as movement or temporal patterns.
Timing the drone
Given the inherent temporal character of sonic events there is a growing body of literature on the
rhythmic structure of soundscapes (see, for example, Winkler 2002, Botteldooren et al. 2006, or
Gunderlach 2007). Some of these studies even provide time lines or time-cycles that chart periodic
changes in the soundscape (see fig. 3). These time lines often reveal an ebb-and-flow-like temporal
pattern with a peak in the day and a low at night. Even though the city – and with it the drone – may
literally never sleep, it usually tends to calm down a little at night.
Fig. 3 charts several sonic events, only some of which might be identified as drones. Interestingly, 'city
buses' and 'air traffic' are combined on a single line here, thus supporting the characterization of
different monotonic engine sounds as drones.
Depending on the location observed, the results of such time-cycles may differ significantly. Needless to
say that maps or time cycles cannot represent both spatial and temporal variations at the same time.
Their information has always to be put into context.
Fig. 3: The daily cycle of sounds at Chatham Village (Gunderlach 2007, 18)
Observing the drone
Considering the daily commuter flow, the city as a whole often features a centripetal and centrifugal
movement pattern – comparable to an organism breathing in and out. The city seems to attract and
intensify the drone in the mornings, bustling and steadily droning through the day. Towards night the
drone flows out again and disperses in the hinterland.
Those local as well as temporal shifts are hard to grasp with noise maps or time-cycles. For this purpose
I propose to consult some traffic flow simulations instead – though we have to be aware that they do not
rely on sound measurements but on statistical data.
A video simulation of airplane flights (Zurich University of Applied Sciences 2008) lifts our perspective
on a global focus. The simulation shows all scheduled flights over a 24h period worldwide. Every day
93,000 flights start from approximately 9,000 airports. So at all times there are between 8,000 and 13,000
airplanes in the air [See the video example Civil Air Traffic Worldwide7].
Although this simulation is not explicitly linked to noise it can still sensitize us to the fact that cities are
connected through global drone corridors. Naturally, the drones are not some extraterrestrial species
conquering the world's surface. Droning airplanes are a certain type of high-energy sonic agents that
we create and spread across the globe, so it is not surprising that their distribution clearly marks the
centres of our current capitalist world order: the video example reveals a considerable concentration of
airline flows across the U.S., Europe, and Asia as well as between those regions. For a more substantive
analysis of airline data – as evidence for global city networks – see Derudder, van Nuffel, and
7 [See the video example Civil Air Traffic Worldwide at http://sonicagents.wordpress.com/mapping-the-drone/ ]
Witlox 2009.
As suggested by these global airline flows, and together with the whole network of roads, freeways, and
railways, cities can reasonably be conceived as agglomerations and junctions of drone passages.
The following example shows the varying road traffic flows in the inner city. This simulation depicts the
average speeds of vehicles as they move through different channels in the city of Lisbon, Portugal
(relying on GPS data collected in October 2009). The movements of 1534 vehicles throughout one month
are condensed in a 24h day. The four snapshots in fig. 4 represent different points in time during this 24
hours period – as indicated by the counter in the upper left corner [See the video example
Visualizing traffic jam in Lisbon8].
Here, the average speeds are mapped with different colours: cool green signifies rapid transit arteries
(roughly, dark grey in fig. 4), red areas represent sluggish areas with slow traffic (light grey).
Fig. 4: Visualization of average speeds in Lisboa (Cruz 2010)
8 [See the video example Visualizing traffic jam in Lisbon at http://sonicagents.wordpress.com/mapping-the-drone/]
Again, it is not the sound that we observe here, but a simulation based on GPS data. Still, if we assume
that the intensity of the drone is dependent upon the traffic volume as well as on its speed, the
simulation is useful for our purpose. Most notably, it is apt to visualize some of the temporal patterns in
the actual traffic flows that are generally to be perceived through sound, including the recurrent
pattern of the city's centripetal/centrifugal forces attracting/dispelling the drone.
Conclusion
With this short examination of the urban drone I hope to decipher to a certain type of sonic events
which is often labelled as 'noise.' The concept of the drone as an active sonic agent shifts the emphasis
towards the making of a sound (rather than the perception of a sound), thus partially questioning the
anthropocentric perspective on the soundscape. For example, the sound of a freight train is a complex
coaction of several physical and material conditions involved on the one hand – like railway carriages,
more or less corroded rail tracks and so on – as well as between the many driving forces behind this
process on the other hand – such as gravity, the driver and the engine. This individual sonic agent (as
any other) has its own morphological characteristics, conveying rich sonic information about its
movements, size, and material composition.
Sonic agents are the actual contributors to the soundscape. As illustrated by the drone, even engines or
technical devices actively produce sound and may also show some 'behavioural patterns.' With maps,
time-cycles, and field recordings I have proposed some experimental methods for the study of those
rhythmical patterns and the spatial distribution of the drone. Obviously, our sonic environment calls
for a different spatial analysis than visual space. For example, by means of sound, cities stretch out
beyond their physical borders in many ways. This sonic extension into the surrounding landscape was
once achieved by church bells, thus demarcating the sphere of the civilized town (see Corbin 1999). In
early modern Europe the bronze bell could give its acoustical imprint to a whole era.
With the drone now, a class of historically new, monotonic noise sources, progressively increasing in
overall intensity throughout the 20th century, there is a new sonic agent conquering the soundscape.
Considering the sound of automobiles on a highway – a particular sonic interaction between asphalt
streets, pneumatic tyres, and internal-combustion engines in operation – can we conclude that the
drone forms the acoustical imprint of our times? Or was this era already gone at the dawn of the digital
age, which has brought about a whole different – and vastly differentiated – universe of sound?
Throughout history there has always been a close relation between our material culture and the
soundscape. In part, this relation seems to be contested now due to the proliferation of artificial sounds
introduced by digital devices.
A cultural-anthropological investigation of the changing soundscape calls our attention to the audible
features of everyday cultural practice. In this regard, the introduction of the sonic agent is an
experimental move aiming to extend the terminology of both cultural anthropology and sound studies.
Noise makes up a significant part of urban culture. Referring to the social implications of the
soundscape, urban sociologist Rowland Atkinson states that '[s]ound in urban space is both an ordered
and ordering force' (Atkinson 2011, 24). Within the complex 'sonic ecology' of a city
'… acoustic territories can be delineated and appear to have a variety of social functions and influences. Music, sound and noise can be seen as spatial and temporal territories in the city suggesting that for particular groups the soundscape has a profound effect on patterns of social association, physical movement and interaction' (Atkinson 2007, 1915).
For instance, Atkinson conceives the programmatic use of music in shops and public spaces – referred
to as 'functional music' or 'muzak' – as a means to brand space: 'Muzak is thereby used as an auditory
territorial marker' (Atkinson 2007, 1910), intended 'to “filter” users and consumers by taste and
patterns of consumption' (Atkinson 2007, 1914). But noise shapes this 'sonic order of urban space' as
well. House prices and rents, to take one example, are partly related to ambient noise levels. Quietude in
the city is a scarce good; the ability to shield oneself from sonic intrusions and interferences is unevenly
distributed, reflecting social inequalities. In summary, Atkinson points out that we are 'propelled,
guided, embraced or apparently rejected by sound in subtle ways. Sound affects people in ways that
then filters and sorts them across urban spaces in complex ways' (Atkinson 2011, 22). Due to the
prevailing emphasis on the 'non-human' share in our everyday practices in this volume, many questions
regarding the social impact and cultural meanings of sound had to be omitted here. In any case, they
should be subjected to further research. The force lines of the urban drone, as outlined in this chapter,
are but one part of this daily changing sonic ecology.
In this chapter I intended to argue for the sonic environment conceived as a transient, yet rich and
complex fabric, generated by innumerable sonic agents. Their sounds may be as subtle as a crumpled
paper rolling around in the wind – or as deafening as an airplane landing.
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