This blog will be devoted to understanding and reflecting on the Audio Papers – a manifesto article on the Seismograf website as well as looking at a response to that manifesto.
As with the response to the manifesto, I’ll list the 8 tenets here:
1. The audio paper affords performative aesthetics.
2. The audio paper is idiosyncratic.
3. The audio paper is situated and partial.
4. The audio paper renders affects and sensations.
5. The audio paper is multifocal; it assembles diverse and often heterogeneous voices.
6. The audio paper has multiple protagonists, narrators and material agencies.
7. The audio paper brings aesthetics and technologies together in mediation.
8. The audio paper is a constituent part of larger ecologies.
Something I had suspected was the case with audio papers were their “public speaking tenancies”. What I mean by that is that is covered in 3 main points.
- The form has now become just as prominent as the content while being juxtaposed to the written dissertation (the first tenet, fourth tenet and seventh tenet). A performative aspect has grown because the audio paper seeks to improve on the written paper format and to not become redundant in comparison to the written paper and visual documentary (meaning that the audio paper has to focus on the quirks of the medium to not die out as an idea)
- Unlike a dissertation but like a public speaking event, the content of the audio paper is deeply linked to the creator due to stylistic choices but also due to the switch from formal written language to a more informal spoken one (the second tenet). This was the aspect of audio papers I found the most prominent as I learnt about what they are. Anything that called itself an audio paper would confuse me as it didn’t make sense to how information was either not very organised, not as informative as I expected from a written paper alternative or informal as speech lends itself more to being informal in general. The biggest offender of this point would be podcasts (if you include those as audio papers).
- Audio papers have to have narrow scope in terms of formal information so that they can fit in all the other sounds that are in an audio paper. A more restrictive structure leads to having a more biased or partisan paper as you have to get your point across in a shorter amount of time (touches upon the third tenet, sixth tenet and fifth tenet). This is a strange point as I do completely ignore the existence of normal podcasts with it; however, I do believe that it doesn’t make sense to include long 1-2hr podcasts as audio papers from the get-go as they’re already established in the public consciousness as something separate to other auditory mediums and are their own unique thing. It is hard to make 2 people talking for a long time interesting and most audio papers try to avoid that happening and try to keep the focus of the listener through sound design and interesting editing (and content of course). This sacrifices time for the transfer of knowledge from the creator to the listener, but an audio paper tries to be academic in some way. So due to that restriction in time, the information in the audio paper has to be biased to the opinion of the creator and narrow in scope so that the point being made can be made.
I call it “public speaking tenancies” as an audio paper has put itself in the position of being a piece of public speaking with sound design on top. Of course, that’s a very reductive view of what audio papers are like but when the definition is so vast, there are places where my findings are accurate.
The What is an Audio Paper? response to Seismograph manifesto article by Holger Schulze reflects on the tenets set out by Samson and Groth while also leaving a lot on the table.
The main takeaway is near the start of the article where Schulze mentions the incongruency in how the audio paper sets out to be an outlet of academic research yet becomes informal, personal and partisan as the audio paper intrinsically avoids the hallmarks of “traditional academic presentation”. Other than that, the article mostly goes on to be a hopeful and inspiring text about the future possibilities for the audio paper.
What’s interesting to me is that there is no link on moodle to Samson and Groth’s newer article on the Seismograf website that goes into their experiences with audio papers and also some background on the making of the audio paper manifesto. It was interesting to see in that in the same article that “the audio paper is an academic publication” yet is also a subversion of academia and the logic between to two statements. Another thing that caught my eye was the statement “A clear definition of the audio paper is thus still in the making and depends on its future manifestations.” What this says to me is that the very idea of an audio paper right now, being an alternative to traditional academics, can change based on what calls itself an audio paper in the future.
After learning what an audio paper could be and confirming its tendencies, it has made me reconsider my excitement to make one as it now becomes a much more daunting task creatively and has revealed itself as another sound arts piece without any real direction other than it trying to be an academic piece. I wonder if the term audio paper actually has longevity and if it’s not just a fad of the time we live in because it is prone to be warped into something completely different to what it is now. It also makes me wonder if in 30 years the term audio paper will be a popular term or if it’ll be consumed and assimilated into a different term like Sound Studies.