Évènements

Organized by Pierre Prouteau (LAMC & EASt/ULB, CREM, CASE)

Does the sound of the world tend to become always more amplified? Why does this feeling stays on the mind like an earworm, sometimes with delight, often with a negative value attached to it – the nuisance of noise. How has this potentially universal tendency to enhance amplification been reinvigorated by electroacoustic? The objective of this study day is to address electroacoustic amplification in its physiological, acoustic, aesthetic, philosophical, technical, moral dimensions—is the pleasure of some, the noise of others, and how is the occupied “volume” negotiated? And its afferent political dimension. The idea is to examine the definitions of sound intensity, its effects on audience perception, and how electroacoustic amplification has impacted already-existing repertoires, and contributed to create new ones. Can sound systems be a weapon in the media arena? As a weapon of the weak or an instrument of domination?

Program

9h30-10h Coffee

I. Musicians and amplification

10h-10h30 Abderraouf Ouertani (member CUNTIC, Univ. of Tunis) What amplification requires: The Impact of Amplification on Oud Practices (and its study)

10h30-11h Sarah Benhaim (Lecturer Univ. of Lorraine) Extreme listening: sounds and amplification in noise music

11h-11h30 Coffee

II. Religion and amplification

11h30-12h Séverine Gabry-Thienpont (IDEAS, CNRS, amU) ‘People Love This Sound’ (en-nās betḥebb eṣ-ṣawt dā): Rethinking the Amplification of Islamic Sound in Egypt

12h-12h30 Mukul Menon (predoc, Univ. Tübingen) Modulating Religiosity: Qualified Amplification of Sounds, Ideas, and Practices

12h30-14h Lunch Break

III. Theories of amplification

14h-14h30 Helma Korzybska (S2HEP, Univ. Lyon 1, member LESC/CNRS, Univ. Paris Nanterre) Redefining “noise”. Amplifications, modulations and redefinitions of auditory perception through cochlear implants

14h30-15h Carola Lorea (Professor Univ. of Tübingen) On mantras, picnic parties and car horns: towards a South Asian sonic theory of amplification as auspiciousness

15h-16h Collective discussion and end of study day

Abstracts

Abderraouf Ouertani (member CUNTIC, Univ. of Tunis) What amplification requires: The impact of amplification on oud practices (and its study)

This presentation will describe the impact of the widespread use of electric amplification in the case of the oud, between constraints (sound degradation, feedback) and advantages (new sounds, going beyond the strict framework of chamber music). It will also be an opportunity to discuss the place of socio-technical phenomena related to electric amplification in music studies and to problematise some key concepts in ethnomusicology such as ‘instrument’, “music” and ‘musician’.

Sarah Benhaim (Lecturer Univ. of Lorraine) Extreme listening: sounds and amplification in noise music

Considering loud sound objects in the field of music invites us to take an interest in the technical means and technologies used to amplify musical productions, but also in musical genres that place particular importance on sound volume in their creative process and listening modalities. This is the case with noise music, an experimental music that emerged in the early 1980s, which is unique in that it is characterised by noise-based material and sound diffusion conditions that are often considered extreme. I will examine how noise artists and listeners perceive noise and high-volume amplification aesthetically and sensorially, based on interviews and recordings from a field study conducted in Paris. After a brief review of the centrality of noise in noise music, I will explain how amplification constitutes a noisy mediation from the point of view of instrumental performance, before showing how it plays a major role in live listening by promoting an immersive and ecstatic listening experience.

Séverine Gabry-Thienpont: ‘People Love This Sound’ (en-nās betḥebb eṣ-ṣawt dā): Rethinking the Amplification of Islamic Sound in Egypt

In Egypt, religious sound is everywhere. It saturates public space, asserting itself as a given: the adhān (call to prayer), zikr-s (collective devotional chants), and layālī al-khayrīya (charitable evenings)... These systematically amplified expressions shape a now-familiar soundscape. For individuals, this amplification is the norm: it carries sounds into the intimacy of homes, reaching—whether desired or not—every stratum of society. In this presentation, I will explore the sound amplification devices used in contemporary Egyptian Muslim contexts.

Through three ethnographic moments, we will examine how these amplified sounds function as politico-religious markers, structuring (or even overwhelming) the social fabric. This discussion will also provide an opportunity to assess the relevance of what I term a "religious acoustemology", inspired by Steven Feld’s concept, for analyzing the amplification of contemporary religious music.

Mukul Menon (predoc, Univ. Tübingen) Modulating Religiosity: Qualified Amplification of Sounds, Ideas, and Practices

Sound in the context of public, communal, and private piety is linked to mediation with the more-than-human and the inscription of identity, social relations, and associations with the past. Amplification as a tool and a method of augmenting such processes is especially evident in religious cultures that are based on what has been termed ‘acoustic piety’, that is, religiosity significantly produced, interpreted, and perceived through sound and in sonic terms. What do differences in sonic and cultural amplification of religious practices in a hierarchical and stratified social environment indicate about underlying social phenomena? To explore this idea, this paper takes as a case study the popular practice of recitations of the 16th-century text, Addhyātma Rāmāyaṇam Kiḷippāṭṭ, a regional vernacular retelling of the religious epic Rāmāyaṇa in Kerala, South India. Using ethnographic and archival data, it looks at how, through the amplification of recitational practices and ancillary activities- including onsite live and playback performances, congregational sonic acts, public sermons, and political speeches in urban and rural contexts- particular communities, socialities, and spaces are delineated. Modulations in how ideas and sounds are expanded indicate particularities of cultural transformations and continuities. which are expressed, shared, and felt, but also creatively deployed by social agents.

Helma Korzybska (S2HEP, Univ. Lyon 1, member LESC/CNRS, Univ. Paris Nanterre) Redefining “noise”. Amplifications, modulations and redefinitions of auditory perception through cochlear implants

Introducing neurotechnologies into the bodies and perception of people who have lost the ability to hear raises numerous technical, cultural and ethical questions (Mills 2012, Friedner and Helmreich 2012, Lloyd & Bonventre 2020, Bonventre et al. 2023, Kecman et al. 2026), nuancing widespread notions of human augmentation. The learning and rehabilitation process following the surgical implantation is long and strenuous, leaving people with sounding worlds they often find difficult to interpret and to incorporate. Not only do individuals have to deal with day-to-day technical issues and sensory fluctuations, but they also must learn to manage the cultural gap with the newfound perception.

Using cochlear implants requires different types of adjustments and negotiations, of sensory thresholds, somatic modes of attention, as well as expectations… If “augmenting” perception doesn’t usually translate in a meliorative sense, some kind of enhancement does operate here. What kinds of amplifications or intensifications are produced or enabled through these stimulation devices? How are perception and experience amplified in this context?

The technological design and implantation and rehabilitation protocols lead to very specific ways of heightening sensations and modes of attention. This communication proposes to offer insights into the complexity of equipping perception with technological devices, by focusing on the semantic, sensory, and affective redefinitions of “noise”, as revealed through the electrode calibration process and negotiations between patients and speech therapists/audiologists observed in a cochlear implantation service in France.

Dr. Carola Lorea (Professor Univ. of Tübingen) On mantras, picnic parties and car horns: towards a South Asian sonic theory of amplification as auspiciousness

Based on extensive ethnographic research on mantras and sacred sound practices in India, this paper develops a preliminary theory of amplification as auspiciousness. Drawing on sonic ethnography, I approach amplification not primarily as a technical operation, but as a culturally and ritually charged modality of sharing auspiciousness in space. I first demonstrate how amplified sound is widely associated with safety, joy, the assertion of presence, life energy, and positive force. Through everyday and festive soundscapes—such as picnic-season loudspeaker cultures and the affective sensorium of vehicular honking—I show how loudness and sonic expansion are socially experienced as protective, enlivening, and affirming.

The paper then moves beyond strictly audible sound to explore forms of non-electroacoustic amplification of unheard auspicious sounds. Focusing in particular on spinning and other kinetic practices, I examine how motion itself amplifies mantras—understood as sacred, efficacious formulas—by engaging agentive elements such as wind, fire, electricity, and the human voice. Here, amplification is not only a matter of volume, but of circulation, repetition, and scattering into space, underscoring the inseparability of sound, movement, space, and felt vibration. By bringing together loudness, motion, and mantra practice, this paper traces the contours of a broader South Asian sonic ideology in which amplification emerges as a central mode of producing auspiciousness and of making place.