The world of the deaf is anything but soundless; it is a world in which sound is experienced and felt through vision, touch, and vibration, rather than through hearing. What are the consequences of this fact for the multisensory experience of sound and music by both the deaf and the hearing? What does it mean, for our perception of music, that sound affects touch as well as hearing(or that hearing is a kind of touch), and that bodies vibrate through sounds at least as much as ears hear them? The presentation will be based on several examples of deaf sound artists and musicians, ranging from the avant-garde to experimental and from rave to rap, as well as on various examples of artistic,musical/visual works and performances that destabilize the boundaries of the body and the senses through liminal artistic expressions. Recent research in deaf studies and sound studies has also bridged the two fields in productive and innovative ways, opening new perspectives in sound art and artistic research on sound in general. Part of the material on which the presentation is based was created and developed in Athens during the last three years, in the context of the “Audibility” project, part of the wider project B-AIR.
Beyond hearing: deaf soundscapes of touch and vibration
Panayotis Panopoulos
