ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a 2011 album by experimental electronic musician James Ferraro entitled Far Side Virtual. Consisting of 16 instrumental songs made up of preset digital sounds, rhythmic loops, and sonic logos, the composer set about to write a “rubbery plastic symphony for global warming, dedicated to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch”. It considers how particular record production practices can make sense of place, as it is rapidly redefined in an era wherein the human species has made irreparable impacts on geologic conditions and processes. The chapter also considers how making sound can make sense of place, as it is rapidly redefined in an era wherein the human species has made irreparable impacts on geologic conditions and processes. By examining the formal properties of an exemplary work of vaporwave record production practice, it aims to complicate the possibilities of a sonic ecology that allows for rapidly changing discourses that reflect the complexities of constructing environmental knowledge in the moment.
