Locating the Sound of Trauma Within me. In and Out of Memory: Exploring the Tension Between Remembering and Forgetting a Traumatic Event

The process of making sonic work for my PhD was very much about discovering the something that lay beyond the noise. Difficult to verbally articulate, or express through words, the something remained unknown until the violence of the noise was finally embodied. It was only through taking the noise into my body that the concept of silence could be fully comprehended. Simon Reynolds writes about noise as “a wordless state in which the very constitution of ourselves is in jeopardy,” “an eruption within the material out of which language is shaped” (2006). Noise: It’s 2012, I am seated in an auditorium in Plymouth, listening to noise musician Merzbow played really loudly by Salome Voegelin. I have a flashback. The past becomes present and the current present disappears. I am back in New York. The Twin Towers falling, and I am hearing their collapse for the first time, despite having been there on the day. This essay is an exploration of the differing qualities and layers of silence into which the loudness of the falling towers had become enmeshed and the necessity to unravel their noise in order to locate the concept of an inner silence.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Dr. Anna Walker

Conference

Publication date: August 2019

Publication date (Print): August 2019

Pages: 181-188

Affiliations

[0001]Plymouth University

Transtechnology Research Group

Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, United Kingdom

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/RESOUND19.28

SO-VID: eb9f0311-571a-494c-bf37-1c5a8d4fbbcd

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: RE:SOUND 2019 – 8th International Conference on Media Art, Science, and Technology

Conference acronym: RE:SOUND 2019

Conference number: 8

Conference location: Aalborg, Denmark

Conference date: August 20-23, 2019

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Media Art, Science, and Technology

History

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1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/RESOUND19.28

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

H. Bergson 2004 Matter and Memory Dover Publications, Inc Mineola, New York
C. Caruth 1995 Trauma, Explorations in Memory Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore
C. Caruth 2014 Listening to Trauma. Conversations with Leaders in the Theory and Treatment of Catastrophic Experience Memory Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore
F. DavoineJM. Gaudilliere 2004 History Beyond Trauma S. Fairfield Other Press New York
J. Derrida 1993 1994 Specters of Marx P. Kamuf Routledge New York
J. Derrida 2001 The Work of Mourning P.A. BraultM. Naas The University of Chicago Press Chicago
S. FreudJ. Breuer 1893 2004 Studies in Hysteria N. Luckhurst Penguin Books London
S. FreudJ. ReddickM. Edmundson 2003 Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings Penguin Books London
S. Freud 1926 1977 Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety Beyond the Pleasure Principle (The Standard Edition) (Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud) W. W. Norton & Co London
S. Freud 1919 The Uncanny http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf 1 12 2015
S. Freud 1950 1895 Nachtraglichkeit - Project for a Scientific Psychology http://www.lacanianworks.net/?p=401 25 6 2015
H. Foster 1996 The Return of the Real The MIT Press Cambridge, MA
G. Hainge 2013 Noise Matters: Towards and Ontology of Noise Bloomsbury Academic New York and London
J. Kristeva 1982 Powers of Horror, An Essay on Abjection L.S. Roudiez Columbia University Press New York
J. LaplanchePontalis 1946 1990 The Language of Psychoanalysis O. Fenichel The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis 50th Anniversary Edition Routledge New York
D. LaubS. Lee 2003 Thanatos and Massive Psychic Trauma: The Impact of the Death Instinct on Knowing, Remembering and Forgetting Journal of the American Psychoanalytical Association 51 2 433 464
D. Laub 2009 On Holocaust Testimony and Its “Reception” within Its Own Frame, as a Process its Own Right: A Response to “Between History and Psychoanalysis Thomas Trezise History & Memory 21 1 127 150
C. MalabouS. Miller 2012 The New Wounded Fordham University Press New York
C. Malabou 2009 Plasticity and Elasticity in Freud’s ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle Parallax http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journaNnformation?journalCode=tpar20 23 1 2016
B. Massumi 2002 Parables for the Virtual Movement, Affect, Sensation Duke University Press London
S. Rahimi 2015 Ghosts, Haunting, and Intergenerational Transmission of Affect: From Cryptonymy to Hauntology http://psychoanalyticdiscourse.com/index.php/psad/article/view/21/22 23 1 2016
D. Trigg 2006 The Aesthetics of Decay: Nothingness, Nostalgia, and the Absence of Reason (New Studies in Aesthetics) Peter Lang Publishing Inc New York
S. Voegelin 2005 Pondering a Paradox: The Seduction of Noise paper presented at NoiseTheoryNoise2 conference http://salomevoegelin.net/public_html/salomevoegelin.net/pondering.html 3 5 2016
S. Voegelin 2010 Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art Continuum New York and London
S. Zizek 2002 Welcome to the Desert of the Real! Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates Verso London

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] H. Bergson 2004 Matter and Memory Dover Publications, Inc Mineola, New York

[2] C. Caruth 1995 Trauma, Explorations in Memory Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore

[3] C. Caruth 2014 Listening to Trauma. Conversations with Leaders in the Theory and Treatment of Catastrophic Experience Memory Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore

[4] F. DavoineJM. Gaudilliere 2004 History Beyond Trauma S. Fairfield Other Press New York

[5] J. Derrida 1993 1994 Specters of Marx P. Kamuf Routledge New York

[6] J. Derrida 2001 The Work of Mourning P.A. BraultM. Naas The University of Chicago Press Chicago

[7] S. FreudJ. Breuer 1893 2004 Studies in Hysteria N. Luckhurst Penguin Books London

[8] S. FreudJ. ReddickM. Edmundson 2003 Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Other Writings Penguin Books London

[9] S. Freud 1926 1977 Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety Beyond the Pleasure Principle (The Standard Edition) (Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud) W. W. Norton & Co London

[10] S. Freud 1919 The Uncanny http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf 1 12 2015

[11] S. Freud 1950 1895 Nachtraglichkeit - Project for a Scientific Psychology http://www.lacanianworks.net/?p=401 25 6 2015

[12] H. Foster 1996 The Return of the Real The MIT Press Cambridge, MA

[13] G. Hainge 2013 Noise Matters: Towards and Ontology of Noise Bloomsbury Academic New York and London

[14] J. Kristeva 1982 Powers of Horror, An Essay on Abjection L.S. Roudiez Columbia University Press New York

[15] J. LaplanchePontalis 1946 1990 The Language of Psychoanalysis O. Fenichel The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis 50th Anniversary Edition Routledge New York

[16] D. LaubS. Lee 2003 Thanatos and Massive Psychic Trauma: The Impact of the Death Instinct on Knowing, Remembering and Forgetting Journal of the American Psychoanalytical Association 51 2 433 464

[17] D. Laub 2009 On Holocaust Testimony and Its “Reception” within Its Own Frame, as a Process its Own Right: A Response to “Between History and Psychoanalysis Thomas Trezise History & Memory 21 1 127 150

[18] C. MalabouS. Miller 2012 The New Wounded Fordham University Press New York

[19] C. Malabou 2009 Plasticity and Elasticity in Freud’s ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle Parallax http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journaNnformation?journalCode=tpar20 23 1 2016

[20] B. Massumi 2002 Parables for the Virtual Movement, Affect, Sensation Duke University Press London

[21] S. Rahimi 2015 Ghosts, Haunting, and Intergenerational Transmission of Affect: From Cryptonymy to Hauntology http://psychoanalyticdiscourse.com/index.php/psad/article/view/21/22 23 1 2016

[22] D. Trigg 2006 The Aesthetics of Decay: Nothingness, Nostalgia, and the Absence of Reason (New Studies in Aesthetics) Peter Lang Publishing Inc New York

[23] S. Voegelin 2005 Pondering a Paradox: The Seduction of Noise paper presented at NoiseTheoryNoise2 conference http://salomevoegelin.net/public_html/salomevoegelin.net/pondering.html 3 5 2016

[24] S. Voegelin 2010 Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art Continuum New York and London

[25] S. Zizek 2002 Welcome to the Desert of the Real! Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates Verso London

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