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The Sculpted Ear : Aurality and Statuary in the West / Ryan McCormack.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Perspectives on Sensory History ; 2Publisher: University Park, PA : Penn State University Press, [2020]Copyright date: ©2020Description: 1 online resource (224 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780271087511
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 731 23
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Elvis Leaves the Building -- 1. Animation Introduces Animation -- 2. Breathing Voice into Laocoön’s Mouth -- 3. Imperial Possessions -- 4. Hearing a Stone Man -- 5. Aural Skins -- 6. Now You Have to Go, Comrade -- 7. Museums of Resonance -- Conclusion: I Now Present Sergei Rachmaninoff -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary: Sound and statuary have had a complicated relationship in Western aesthetic thought since antiquity. Taking as its focus the sounding statue—a type of anthropocentric statue that invites the viewer to imagine sounds the statue might make—The Sculpted Ear rethinks this relationship in light of discourses on aurality emerging within the field of sound studies. Ryan McCormack argues that the sounding statue is best thought of not as an aesthetic object but as an event heard by people and subsequently conceptualized into being through acts of writing and performance.Constructing a history in which hearing plays an integral role in ideas about anthropocentric statuary, McCormack begins with the ancient sculpture of Laocoön, before moving to a discussion of the early modern automaton known as Tipu’s Tiger and the statue of the Commendatore in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Finally, he examines statues of people from the present and the past, including the singer Josephine Baker, the violinist Aleksandar Nikolov, and the actor Bob Newhart—with each case touching on some of the issues that have historically plagued the aesthetic viability of the sounding statue. McCormack convincingly demonstrates how sounding statues served as important precursors and continuing contributors to modern ideas about the ontology of sound, technologies of sound reproduction, and performance practices blurring traditional divides between music, sculpture, and the other arts.A compelling narrative that illuminates the stories of individual sculptural objects and the audiences that hear them, this book will appeal to anyone interested in the connections between aurality and statues in the Western world, in particular scholars and students of sound studies and sensory history.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780271087511

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Elvis Leaves the Building -- 1. Animation Introduces Animation -- 2. Breathing Voice into Laocoön’s Mouth -- 3. Imperial Possessions -- 4. Hearing a Stone Man -- 5. Aural Skins -- 6. Now You Have to Go, Comrade -- 7. Museums of Resonance -- Conclusion: I Now Present Sergei Rachmaninoff -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Sound and statuary have had a complicated relationship in Western aesthetic thought since antiquity. Taking as its focus the sounding statue—a type of anthropocentric statue that invites the viewer to imagine sounds the statue might make—The Sculpted Ear rethinks this relationship in light of discourses on aurality emerging within the field of sound studies. Ryan McCormack argues that the sounding statue is best thought of not as an aesthetic object but as an event heard by people and subsequently conceptualized into being through acts of writing and performance.Constructing a history in which hearing plays an integral role in ideas about anthropocentric statuary, McCormack begins with the ancient sculpture of Laocoön, before moving to a discussion of the early modern automaton known as Tipu’s Tiger and the statue of the Commendatore in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Finally, he examines statues of people from the present and the past, including the singer Josephine Baker, the violinist Aleksandar Nikolov, and the actor Bob Newhart—with each case touching on some of the issues that have historically plagued the aesthetic viability of the sounding statue. McCormack convincingly demonstrates how sounding statues served as important precursors and continuing contributors to modern ideas about the ontology of sound, technologies of sound reproduction, and performance practices blurring traditional divides between music, sculpture, and the other arts.A compelling narrative that illuminates the stories of individual sculptural objects and the audiences that hear them, this book will appeal to anyone interested in the connections between aurality and statues in the Western world, in particular scholars and students of sound studies and sensory history.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 27. Jan 2023)