Unintelligible: Noise Against Capture

This conference seeks to cultivate an interdisciplinary understanding of the field of Sound Studies by taking up the ubiquitous sonic trope of noise, considering its counter-productive character and how it can be a tactic for critique against the capture of individuals and communities of resistance. We will look at how "Others" are produced by noise, asking: can we understand these subjects that destabilize normativity to be a kind of noise? Can noise understood as negation ("disruptive," "illegible," "unintelligible") still be productive and resistant? How do we slow the impulse to turn noise into a metaphor and highlight its material role in neighborhoods, institutions, and culture?