Electro-Acoustical Space

Extract

The perception of space as primarily visual and “pure” enters man's consciousness as a fairly late development. In the Western world the transition from the multi-sensuous space of the nonliterate societies to the visual space of our recent past occurs with the geometry of Euclid. But the purely visual perceptions of Western history can no longer function as the only clues in perceiving a discontinuous and multileveled environment. High-speed, space-time, simultaneity, and the rise of the pervasive, ephemeral technologies of light and electronics have elevated acoustical values in our society. Auditory phenomena emerge in our culture as perceptual agents for defining space. Sound is existential: it connotes existence and the presence of activity, something going on. The depth and dimension of sound unite people as nothing else does.

The return of acoustical values to Western society should be a signal to practitioners of theatre to become aware of the audience's newly tuned-in acoustical perceptions.