Audiogenic Images

John Puterbaugh, 1999

Sonopoietic images are constructed in response to sound. There is a wide continuum of sound-producing objects. At one end are man-made sounds, which I will refer to as audiogenic images, while at the other end are natural sounds. John Berger (1972) has provided a clear description and critique of visual images which are the corrolary of audiogenic images. The following statements are my translation of Berger’s definition of images into sonic terminology, and are used to define the concept of audiogenic images:

An [audiogenic image] is a [sonic event] which has been recreated or
reproduced. It is a [sound, or a set of sounds] which has been detached
from the place and time in which it first made its appearance and preserved
– for a few moments of a few centuries (Berger 1972, p. 9).

All [audiogenic images] are man-made (Berger 1972, p. 9).

Consequently a reproduction, as well as making its own references to
the [audiogenic image] of its original, becomes itself the reference
point of other [audiogenic images]. The meaning of the [audiogenic
image] is changed according to [what one hears in it and beside it or
what comes immediately after it]. Such authority as it retains, is distributed
over the whole context in which it occurs (Berger 1972, p. 29).

Typical audiogenic images come from phonographs, tape recordings, and compact disks. Not all audiogenic images are recordings just as not all images are photographs.

Berger, J. (1972) Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation.