Julian describes sonic bodies as the people that attend sound systems, the sound system itself contains a crew that operate each function. The speakers themselves carry high, sub, sub-bass, mid frequencies. And the curation of all of it is a laboratory. Where the crew play and use intuition to create a so-called “vibe” where the crowd react to every decision that is made.
In this text, bodies are being recognised as sonic, while making a connection and difference between consuming sound. In a sound system, the body is placed in the sound. Being surrounded by the speakers and the other listeners. Whereas with earphones listening is the opposite. Sound is placed inside bodies. This I assume is speaking around the idea of being a sonic body. The separation between the ethnographic mentality of thinking and more towards the abstract. And that Sound offers dynamic ways of thinking through corporeal practices of thought.
It is also a turn away from any hierarchy of the senses and the dominance of vision in particular, towards a pattern of cooperation of sensory modalities in which each contributes its unique qualities for our negotiation through the “ambient energy”. A quote I felt represented a lot of this text, the thirty-eight pages speak on this idea of a different way of learning and thinking. Through doing and reacting to relative actions in space that thinking through sound is just as important in this context as other ways. As well as bringing light to this idea of “thinking through sound”.
Sonic Bodies challenges some of the most widely held assumptions about what knowledge itself actually is. One such assumption is that knowledge resides in “the mind” – as if this could be separate from its body. Another is that knowledge is information about things, rather than relationships and dynamic patterns. A third assumption is that knowledge originates with peer-reviewed research in the academy, rather than subaltern or lumpen street cultures.
Again another different approach to knowledge, instead of seeing things as objects they are seen as relationships and actions amongst themselves. That the mind and body are in unison when conducting thoughts and actions. One doesn’t work with the other, and I believe Julian argues this by bringing attention to the knowing without learning or more so learning differently than the western world believes is the only way to attain knowledge.