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Cybernetics, listening, and sound-studio phenomenotechnique in Abraham Moles’s Théorie de l’information et perception esthétique (1958)

Bell, Eamonn

Cybernetics, listening, and sound-studio phenomenotechnique in Abraham Moles’s Théorie de l’information et perception esthétique (1958) Thumbnail


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Abstract

In his Théorie de l’information et perception esthétique (1958), the sociologist of culture Abraham Moles (1920–1992) set out to demonstrate the applicability of information theory—a mathematical linchpin of cybernetics—to the arts more generally. Moles drew on classical psychophysics, Gestalt psychology, more modern behavioral psychology, and contemporary psychoacoustic research to advocate a cybernetic model of the perception and creation of art. Moles repeatedly returned to musical examples therein to make his case, leveraging his dual expertise in philosophy and electroacoustics, drawing on formative experiences with Pierre Schaeffer in Paris and Hermann Scherchen at his Gravesano studio. Moles’s interdisciplinary text found many attentive readers across Europe and, following an English translation by the precocious Joel E. Cohen (1966), the Anglophone academic world, but was valued more as an inspiration for the burgeoning area of “information aesthetics” than as a source of hard scientific evidence. Drawing lightly on positions in the history and philosophy of science articulated by Gaston Bachelard (who supervised Moles’s second PhD, in philosophy) and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger suggests a change of emphasis away from its apparent scientific infelicities and toward Moles’s use of sound-studio technique, which is described with reference to the technologies available to Moles in the years leading up to the publication of the Théorie. Moles manipulated and processed sound recordings—filtering, clipping, and reversing them—in his attempts to empirically estimate the relative proportions of semantic and aesthetic information in speech and music. Moles’s text, when understood in tandem with the traces of his practical experiments in the sound studio, appears as an influential and occasionally prescient exposition of the many possible applications of the principles of information theory to the production, perception, and consumption of sound culture, that makes ready use of the latest technical innovations in the media environment of its time.

Citation

Bell, E. (2021). Cybernetics, listening, and sound-studio phenomenotechnique in Abraham Moles’s Théorie de l’information et perception esthétique (1958). Resonance (Oakland, Calif.), 2(4), 523-558. https://doi.org/10.1525/res.2021.2.4.523

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date Dec 1, 2021
Publication Date 2021
Deposit Date Oct 21, 2021
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Resonance: The Journal of Sound and Culture
Publisher University of California Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 2
Issue 4
Pages 523-558
DOI https://doi.org/10.1525/res.2021.2.4.523

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Published as Bell, Eamonn (2021). Cybernetics, listening, and sound-studio phenomenotechnique in Abraham Moles’s Théorie de l’information et perception esthétique (1958). Resonance: The Journal of Sound and Culture 2(4): 523-558. © 2021 by The Regents of the University of California. Copying and permissions notice: Authorization to copy this content beyond fair use (as specified in Sections 107 and 108 of the U. S. Copyright Law) for internal or personal use, or the internal or personal use of specific clients, is granted by [the Regents of the University of California/on behalf of the Sponsoring Society] for libraries and other users, provided that they are registered with and pay the specified fee via Rightslink® or directly with the Copyright Clearance Center.





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