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Transgressive Sound Surrogacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2011

Michael Pedersen*
Affiliation:
Jeagersborggade 48 st.th., 2200 Copenhagen N, Denmark

Abstract

This four-part exposition revisits Denis Smalley's concept of sound surrogacy from a critical constructive approach. In the first part, Smalley's article from 1997 serves as a point of origin for a close investigation of his concept. We examine the precise definitions and demarcations in his concepts and we attempt to systematise the model. In the second part of the investigation we attempt to solve some of the problems in Smalley's model by suggesting a new surrogacy model originating in Smalley's idea, but with a more formal structure and obvious demarcations. Having presented this new surrogacy model, with references to Georges Bataille's theories on base materialism as well as anthropological studies, we attempt to create a new order of surrogacy that in its object relation is positioned beneath Smalley's first-order surrogacy (as the remote surrogacy order is placed above the third-order surrogacy) – an impossible/paradoxical category that will be termed transgressive sound surrogacy. In the fourth part we demonstrate this new surrogacy order in a series of examples found in art and culture.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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