Echo (and diffraction)
Carolyn McKenzie-Craig, Visual Art
A methodology of echo and diffraction could be seen as a feminist act that decentres from vocality to a distributed rhythm that moves inside, over and within other objects -bodies and forms. In this space the reverb of other actions – nuances —movements and breathes is re-constituted via the body and extended outwards to generate new dialogic formations. These forms remain tethered to the origin text/sound/action but gain connection and complexity via waves of diffraction and intra-action. (Barad)
Echo as acoustimatric offers a transitive access point to a doubling or diffusing of the subject herself. This doubling gives agency to perform within the subject’s interiority – to hear the outside reverb back within the interior spaces of the body via reflection and sense its own spectral shadow. The acoustic wave disperses movement into rhythm and flesh via sonic remains, enunciating multiple temporalities from the movements of one body.
Echo as vibration considers the body and its relational vibrations to objects – other discourses and histories to consider how to enact via affectual movement = a latent space of potential becoming and unbecoming.
Echo as a depth seeking device measures the undercurrent of matter – both the flesh and the structures of support that surround. In this way depth is ‘Fathomed’ – locating knowledge via a sensory apparatus. It penetrates the water – flesh- and stone to sense proximity – or to un-sense. Echo within this frame offers a sensing out and a return of sensory input in a new form.
Echo as vocality: Anne Carson has stated that ‘putting a door on the female mouth has been an important project of patriarchal culture from antiquity to the present day’ and that the figure of Echo has for too long encapsulated that negation of vocality. The opening of Carson’s door to the female subject is thus a deeply oceanic act. One that floods the reverberative capacities of repetition into the kind of Différance that Derrida defines as:
The ‘systematic play of differences, of the traces of differences, of the spacing by means of which elements are related to each other. This spacing is the simultaneously active and passive.’ (1)
In this reading Echo encapsulates both the agency and obligarchy of our contemporary image – text – body exchange matrix. By holding onto the spectrality of echo herself we can reframe movements and acts via their social reflections.
1. Derrida, J. (1982). Positions. Trans. Allan Bass. University of Chicago Press. p.27
Tom Hogan, Voice and Sound
in response to Carolyn McKenzie-Craig
For Ovid, Echo is a woman whose speech was so cleverly distracting that Juno punishes her, relegating her to only being able to repeat the final words of what others say.
Hello? Hello?
Echo is the sound, plus an object, reflecting the sound back. The place where the speaker stands is called the centrum phonicum, and the object that returns the voice is the centrum phonocampticum. (1)
Echo is the sound, plus the time it takes to hit the object and come back. If it takes less than about 50ms, we perceive it to be attached to the original sound, empowering, extending and reverberating. It’s still an echo, but so close you just perceive a slight thickening. Like speaking from a throne, or an altar.
I think of echo being used to bolster the voice. I’m thinking of a second layer, double tracking, making John Lennon sound psychedelic and unique. I’m thinking of Elvis singing Blue Moon of Kentucky, making him sound fast and energetic. It seems my first thoughts are of men who became mythical, all thanks to the echo. In doing so, I fall for the trap, and treat the sound of the echo itself as the lesser layer: something softer, or more degraded, due to the tape wearing away, or the Bucket Brigade chip being pushed to its limit and losing clarity.
Echo falls in love with Narcissus, but can only repeat his words back to him. Narcissus hears a voice different from his own, and doesn’t understand the uncanny similarities.
At first, in these early reflections, we think of the echo as being disempowered, and only in support of an original sound. However, acoustically the echo is a continuation of that original sound, not a mirror. It has been transformed by the space and the objects and the bodies.
What’s fascinating is that the further away it gets, the more powerful it becomes. It is no longer experienced as a subordinate. We can almost believe it has become sentient, with its own autonomy:
Hello? Hello.
Echo’s body wastes away leaving only her voice. In other stories, Echo is torn apart by shepherds, after rejecting Pan, of the flute. Without a body, her voice is everywhere.
The voice is sent out and reflects back from many directions at different times, and what we hear is a string of echoes multiplied and overlapping so closely that we can’t differentiate them. It’s the echo, plus an echo, plus an echo, plus an echo, plus an echo, plus an echo… This is reverb. Echoes full of power, resonance, and depth, full of space, and bodies, and objects, lasting longer and longer.
“This is the beginning of forever, and eververververververver...” (2)
1. Cox, Trevor. Sonic Wonderland: A Scientific Odyssey of Sound. London: Vintage, 2015, pp. 124-125.
2. Portishead. "Glory Box." In Dummy, Go! Beat, 1994.