The Sound-Poetry of the Instability of Reality: The audio reality effect and mimesis

Abstract

This article proposes the audio reality effect as a meaningful translation of Roland Barthes’s literary reality effect to the sonic realm. This refinement of transcontextuality and source recognition is applied to electroacoustic music and soundscape composition using the works and writings of Emmerson, Truax, Wishart, Smalley, Fischman, Young, Norman and Field. Lastly, this study mimetically analyses2 seconds / b minor / waveby Michael Pisaro and Taku Sugimoto in order to demonstrate the relevance of mimesis and the audio reality effect for understanding current musical practice.