25.5.09

noise: scourge of modernity?

"The twentieth century is, among other things, the Age of Noise. Physical noise, mental noise and noise of desire -- we hold history's record for all of them. And no wonder; for all the resources of our almost miraculous technology have been thrown into the current assault against silence. That most popular and influential of all recent inventions, the radio is nothing but a conduit through which pre-fabricated din can flow into our homes. And this din goes far deeper, of course, than the eardrums...."
(A cranky Aldous Huxley, 1944)

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"Toward making a 'dead room' in the living room: patented acoustic building materials isolate the subject from city noise. Advertisement for Herringbone Rigid Metal Lath acoustic insulator, Architectural Forum, July 1923." (Caroline A. Jones, Sensorium: Embodied Experience, Technology, and Contemporary Art)

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