The birth of a tactile body-space ma-trix in the relationship of musical sound and space

Abstract

Helmholtz’un fiziksel akustik ve psikoakustik dallarını 1877’de ayırmasından sonra psikoakustik dalı, sesin mekânsallığını ikinci sıraya iten bir yaklaşım izledi. Bunun nedeni sesin içeriğinde fiziksel dünyadaki olaylara dair fiziksel bilgilerin bulunabileceğinin gözardı edilmesiydi. Sesin parametreleri ses düzeyi, perde ve tını olarak belirlendikten sonra mekânsallaştırma yalnızca bir ses kaynağının soyut bir koordinat sistemi içinde konumlandırılması problemi olarak formüle edildi. Bu kavramsallaştırma, sesin mekân ile ilişkisinin fizyolojik formülünde olduğu kadar müziksel ve estetik paradigmalarda da baskın oldu. Modern dönemde kaynakların soyut geometrik düzenlerle din-leyicilere empoze edildiği mekânsal müzik eserleri Öklit uzayını, algısal süreçlerin önünde değer-lendiriyordu. Literatürde bu kavramsallaştırmaya karşı çıkarak genelde algısal süreçleri ve özelde işitselliği gerçek dünyadaki fiziksel olaylarla ilişkilendiren çalışmalar bulunmakta. Ekolojik psikoloji gibi çalışmalar bedeni ön plana çıkartarak yerleşik paradigmaların algısal farklılıklara duyarsız olduklarını, farklılıkların açıklanabilmesi için bedenin mekân içindeki zamansal hareketinin an-laşılması gerektiğini savunuyorlar. Bu kuramlar fiziksel süreçlerle süreklilik içinde olduğundan dolayı dokunma duyusu ile ilgili bir işitmeyi gösteriyor. Günümüz teknolojilerinin etkisi kuramsallaştırılan bu dokunsallığa, uygulamalar yoluyla yeni açılımlar getirmek yönünde. Gelişmeler performatif teknolojik arayüzlerin dokunsallığı oldukça genişletmesi, etkileşimli nesnelerden etkileşimli mekânlara doğru bir evrimleşme, ses üretiminin mikro süreçlerinin müdahale sınırlarına girmesi ve dinamik olarak kontrol edilebilirliğinin artması olarak gösterilebilir. Teknolojik gelişmeler, işitmenin mekân ile ilişkisinin dokunsal bir bilgi türüne doğru kaydığını, bunun da yeni bir beden-mekân işitselliğini ortaya çıkarabileceğini ortaya koyuyor. Anahtar Kelimeler: Müziksel ses ve mekan, mekansallaştırma, dokunsallık, etkileşimli teknolojiler.Following Helmholtz?s separation of physical acoustics and psychoacoustics in 1877, psychoacoustics took an approach that placed a secondary importance on the spatiality of sound. The reason followed that the content of sound was not a research topic, therefore the fact that sound carries information about physical events in the physical world was overlooked. Volume, pitch and timbre were the basic perceptual parameters of musical sound. Each of these parameters had a physical correlate: amplitude, frequency and all that is left out caused per-ception of timbre. Space and sound relationship was formulated as a problem of localization of sound sources in a three-dimensional coordinate system, for the study of psychoacoustics. Psychoacoustics devised the theory of binaural hearing to map the polar space around the head of the listener, who is equipped with two ears. ITD (interaural time difference) and IID (interaural intensity difference) were the main parameters to account for the differences in sound stimulation arriving in two ears; therefore they contain the information regarding the location of the source in free space. As binaural theory advanced with techniques like HRTFs, individual variability was taken into consid-eration, yet the mapping of the polar space around the head was empirically rendered to be heterogeneous in sensitivity with respect to source location and frequency content. Parallel to this physiological impasse with the homogeneity of the hearing space, musical aesthetics was entrapped in a similar paradigm. Wishart criticizes the dominant form of musical composition as a lattice paradigm. Pitch and quantized time points constitute latticework for each instrument, all of which constitute the large lattice. Musical production in the modern era developed to address spatiality as another dimension of the lattice and instrument location was seen as a simple point of emission for musical sound objects. This conceptualization led to a musical aesthetics based on imposition of fixed geometrical constructs on the listener, as spatial diagrams of listening. Harvey reports that listeners are not able to perceive strong forms of geometrical origin, imposed by the works of composers like Stockhausen and Xenakis.Critics of this approach emphasized the interrela-tions of physical events and perceptual processes in general and auditory processes in specific. Abandoning the idea of audition based on abstract visual thinking, these theories shed light on audition based on tactile qualities, as tactility presents a continuum with physical processes. Wishart highlights frequency domain listening as opposed to lattice listening. Sounds with complex spectral content do not obey the rules of musical pitch relations that are derived from the lattice paradigm, implying the existence of other forms of unexplored hearing. Smalley proposes a study of the spectromorphology, to develop a method of extracting information from sound which is about movement in physical space. Therefore gesture, physical forces and sound output becomes inter-related for these approaches.  Ecological psychology formulated by Gibson can be seen as the general framework for these critiques. Ecological views of hearing concentrate on events in an auditory scene as units of analysis, as opposed to sound-objects in establishment theories. Bregman?s theory of auditory scene analysis begins with flow of sound, and relates the temporal structure in the flow to perception of events in the physical world. Current technological advances present new practical unfolding for this theorization. Interactive technologies bring forth a series of developments which have implications on the re-configuring of the senses, and thus a cultural transformation: the broadening of the effect of tactility across many scales with new performative interfaces, the evolution from interactive objects to interactive spaces, and the recent availability of micro scales of sound production for control and manipulation could be counted. These advances provide further evidence for a new auditory body and space experience, one that is rooted in a tactile knowledge of the world. One such cultural evidence follows that the production of sound favors more and more net like structures, rendering the problem of refined three dimen-sional hearing less relevant. A more tightly coupled body and space matrix is emerging: tactile control of micro parameters of sound gives a new sense of space regarding hearing. Cultural and technical changes point out to this tactile turn, which is opposed to dominance of abstract vision. Keywords: Musical sound and space, spatialization, tactility, interactive technologies