Field Recording as the Technology of Self. On the Ethics of the Soundscape Documentation Cover Image

Nagrania terenowe jako „techniki siebie”? Wokół etycznych konsekwencji dokumentowania pejzażu dźwiękowego
Field Recording as the Technology of Self. On the Ethics of the Soundscape Documentation

Author(s): Dariusz Brzostek
Subject(s): Music, Ethics / Practical Philosophy, Rural and urban sociology, ICT Information and Communications Technologies
Published by: Ośrodek Badań Filozoficznych
Keywords: field recording; technology; technology of self; ethics of care; sound art;

Summary/Abstract: Michel Foucault’s idea of the care of the self (epimeleia heautou) is a part of his larger concept of “the technologies of self”, “which permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality” (1988, p. 18). Joan Tronto’s and Berenice Fisher’s concept of the ethics of care, by contrast, emphasizes that: “caring be viewed as a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, our selves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web” (1991, p. 40). This paper discusses the practice of field recording as a technology of self and simultaneously poses the question about the possible transformation of the self-care into a care of a life-sustaining web. This research is based on the recordings, interviews and statements of the Polish field recordists.

  • Issue Year: 2020
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 1-12
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: Polish