AT—05

5 (a) Journal Article

Wright, Mark Peter. “The Thing about Microphones.” Leonardo Music Journal, Vol 26, 60-63 Cambridge: MIT Press, 2016.

Looking at microphones through the framework of Bruno Latour’s Actor-network theory, Wright positions various forms of technical representation as politicized tools of listening. In this way, agency is defined not as an attribute, rather as a state engaged through constant performativity. The author argues that microphones are parasitic entities with bias, existing far from the supposed neutral perspectives they are often assumed to represent. Subsequently as performative agents, microphones engage with unique forms of social distortion, and dissemination of power across multiple histories. Leon Theremin’s innovative Cold War era surveillance device inside the US Embassy in Moscow is discussed in relation to the provenance of “bugs” as problematic entities. As a specific term, “bug” is credited to computer scientist Grace Hopper, who upon finding a dead moth inside a malfunctioning computer, recognized that its body was  interrupting the computers analog circuits, causing an error that required “debugging.”

5 (b) Journal Article

Rourke, Daniel. “An Ontology of Everything on the Face of the Earth.” In The Noise of Being, Amsterdam: Sonic Acts Press, 2017.