I was still unable to attend class this week, apparently my work rota should be sorted and readjusted in a couple of weeks, so I will have to put up with most of my work being done independently while I balance doing everything at once. It is obviously not ideal but it has to be done regardless. Anyway, from the uploaded pdf version of the class I understand that the topic of discussion was that there is a historical account for an anthropology of the senses that has been instilled within culture, that there is a hierarchy of the senses that is racially bound – Lorenz’s heirarchy being the European “eye man”, Asian “ear man”, Native American “nose man”, Australian “tongue man” and African “skin man”. The idea proposed is that, because of historical Western bias that the way we experience senses is intrinsically tied to this hierarchical baggage, and subsequently how we enjoy art, but in modern music performance, I don’t see this issue really coming up (at least in London due to the cultural diversity at least). I’ve been to a lot of gigs last year that had burning incense on stage, utilised the sound and process of eating or drinking and works that amplify the presence of the audience and their agency, so this kind of does less to acknowledge an ongoing issue and more explains why encouraging diversity of sensual stimuli within performance is so prominent and important.

Other interesting takeaways were notions that our approach to listening is tied to our Christian roots (which I don’t entirely understand to be quite honest but the sentiment is quite interesting), as well as the modern world being “a place where the human built environment modifies the living body”, through our inventions of loud machinery we are modifying both our sonic experience as well as detrimenting our hearing longevity, I guess to prioritise other senses if related to the previously mentioned hierarchy. This kind of puts into question more personally to me what I am doing with my own obsession with loud sounds as it is also sacrificing hearing longevity, but rather purely for the sake of the enjoyment of hearing. This is especially poignant right now as I am feeling the consequences more now of listening to this stuff constantly for most of my teenage years, now having increased the sensitivity of my hearing, where I can no longer enjoy them at the levels I used to.

This kind of creates a possibility for an essay topic, being audio harm and thoughts on noise in a more negative light, drawing on the addictive and “harmful” nature as predatory or a detriment, but at the same time I would find it difficult to argue as the medium has for a long time been a huge benefit to my life. But possibly the multi-faceted reasoning could make a more interesting topic if approached well enough to balance an impartial, objective view and a personal experience-based view. It is more of an idea floating around right now, and a good place to start researching from, I feel even if I don’t go through with it all the way.