Altman, R. (1992). Introduction: Four and a half film fallacies. In R. Altman (Ed), Sound Theory Sound Practice. (pp. 35–45). New York: Routledge.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 23/04/2007, 21:17
Gaver, W. W. (1986). Auditory icons: Using sound in computer interfaces. Human-computer Interaction, 2, 167–177.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 08/01/2008, 07:51
"...Wagner's "Leitmotifs" and the use of sound in video games such as Pac Man, use metaphors based on similarities between the temporal progressions of the sounds and the events they are to represent. Other examples, such as the use of changing pitch to stand for changing heights, involve the use of a dimensional metaphor, in which one ordered dimension is used to represent another."
Manipulating parameters of the sound itself such as pitch and loudness (what are termed proximal stimuli), forces mappings between data and representation "to be either arbitrary or, at best, metaphorical. A nomic mapping can only be produced by manipulating the sound in terms of its source -- by using natural sounds." Although such sounds may of course be symbolic or metaphorical, "natural sounds should make possible a higher degree of articulatory directness than manipulating dimensions of the sound itself."
"an auditory icon is a sound that provides information about an event that represents desired data. Instead of using dimensions of sound to stand for dimensions of the data, dimensions of the sound's source are used"
"Auditory icons provide a natural and intuitive way to represent dimensional data and to represent conceptual objects in a computer system."
Metonymic auditory icons are those "in which a feature is used to represent the whole"
Gaver identifies three mappings between data and its representation which he applies to sound:
symbolic -- arbitrary mapping
Metaphoric -- similarities between data and representation which may be structure-mapped (structural similarities) or metonymic.
Nomic -- direct relationship between representation of the sound source and sound. Gavin terms these types of sound auditory icons.
Discusses the notion of articulatory directness which is the continuum on which symbolic (least), metaphoric and nomic (most) stand.
Having suggested that nomic sounds have greater articulatory directness than symbolic, Gavin warns that culturally-ingrained symbolic sounds are just as powerfully representative and should not be discarded as useless.
Truppin, A. (1992). And then there was sound: The films of Andrei Tarkovsky. In R. Altman (Ed), Sound Theory Sound Practice. (pp. 235–248). New York: Routledge.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 11/01/2006, 01:08
In Tarkovsky's later films, audiences choose between "accepting that a sound proves the existence of an unseen object and that of believing in the existence of an invisible spiritual world. Because we posit a source for every offscreen diegetic sound, we believe in the existence of this source even when we cannot produce a viable mental image of it. We believe, although we cannot explain or prove." Truppin explains the last paradox as a fundamental of religious faith.
"...offscreen sound enlarges the film space beyond the borders of the screen. We imagine not only the reality of the world seen on screen, but that of a larger world stretching on indefinitely beyond it."
Tarkovsky's films: "...Tarkovsky's sounds assume a great richness of meaning. ... All sounds of the world [Tarkovsky's film world] can have meaning; all sounds can be signs. ...his ambiguous sounds call out for explanation that is often withheld." Tarkovsky's sounds are very often ambiguous and/or disconcerting.
