Tuesday September 22nd we will be hosting a talk by Gascia Ouzounian here at Notam. The talk is based on Ouzounian forthcoming book The Trembling City: The Sonic and Atmospheric Violence of Vibrational Warfare. The Trembling City: The Sonic and Atmospheric Violence of Vibrational Warfare.
Gascia Ouzounian is a sonic theorist and practitioner whose work explores sound, space, urbanism, and violence. Ouzounian is the author of Stereophonica: Sound and Space in Science, Technology, and the Arts and The Trembling City, which investigates cities in relation to sound and vibrational force, particularly in the contexts of war, genocide, and mass violence. Ouzounian serves as associate professor of music at the University of Oxford, where she leads Sonorous Cities, an ERC-funded research project that explores experimental approaches to sonic analysis and design in architecture and urban practice.
Expanded Frames for Sonic Investigation
This talk explores expanded frames for sonic investigation through the lens of genocide and its aftermath, building on the sonic investigation agency Earshot’s claim that sound and listening can reveal forms of violence that exceed dominant visual paradigms of evidence. Drawing on earwitness testimonies of Armenian genocide survivors, alongside sonic and atmospheric approaches to contemporary conflict, I examine a set of concepts for investigating violence through sound: sonic memory, sonic residue, aftersound, and sonic weather. I consider testimonies that describe sounds that remain «in the ears» days or even decades later – embodied traces of mass violence that persist beyond the moment of killing. I also address less visible modes of violence, including atmospheric occupation and vibrational warfare, in which air and built environments are weaponized through pressure, turbulence, and chronic sonic threat. Finally, I propose a negative acoustics attentive to absence, disappearance, and denial – treating what cannot be heard as a form of evidence. This talk stems from my forthcoming book The Trembling City: The Sonic and Atmospheric Violence of Vibrational Warfare (MIT Press, 2026). Further information and pre-orders are available from MIT Press.
https://www.music.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-gascia-ouzounian
https://ephemeral.observer/
