“The material Flux”; “the hidden mobility beneath”; “Sonic Logos.” Any classicist familiar with the fragments of Heraclitus would be surprised to find these concepts developed in today’s theories about sonic art from authors from different traditions such as Salomé Voegelin, Julian Henriques, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Christoph Cox. The present paper intends to open a dialogue between these authors and Heraclitus, claiming that there is an underlying connection beyond mere coincidence. Sonic thinking proposes listening as the way to access or produce a particular knowledge—one that would otherwise be too difficult or impossible to grasp. This knowledge is produced by practices such as listening and musical meditation instead of intellectual activity alone. To make the case, the authors will present a general outline of what sonic thinking entails to compare it with the relevant points in Heraclitus’s philosophy. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to provide a new sonic framework to read Heraclitus and to provide an old framework to read sonic thinking.
Heraclitus and Sonic Thinking
Trinidad Silva is an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago, Chile. She completed her undergraduate degree in philosophy (2008) at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago. She holds an MA degree (2011) and a PhD (2017) from University College of London (UCL), Department of Greek and Latin, and specializes in ancient philosophy, particularly Plato. She has taught courses in her area at UCL and Universidad de Barcelona (UB) and has published articles in different areas of ancient philosophy and nonfiction books for children.
Gregorio Fontaine (a.k.a Gregorio Fontén) holds a PhD in sonic arts (Goldsmiths, University of London, 2019). His dissertation, “Vacilar: The Entanglement of Self-expression and Its Outside,” proposes vacilar as a Latin American sonic sensitivity. Currently he lives in Valparaiso, Chile, and holds a postdoctoral research position at the Art Institute of Universidad Católica de Valparaiso, developing sound installations and expanding the vacilar research further.
Trinidad Silva, Gregorio Fontaine; Heraclitus and Sonic Thinking. Resonance 1 September 2021; 2 (3): 319–333. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/res.2021.2.3.319
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