ABSTRACT
In discussions of “noise pollution,” sound is defined as waves, pressure, and energy, used differentially to create links with other domains: the ear, the microphone, other forms of pollution. A physicality of the ephemeral emerges in productive gaps between the bases of establishing what noise pollution is and that which is excluded from the category of noise pollution—which nevertheless continues to resonate, meaningful as noise pollution’s other. In 1928, acoustician Vern Knudsen, who forty years later became a vocal campaigner against noise pollution, published an article titled “‘Hearing’ With the Sense of Touch,” the results of a study testing people’s ability to distinguish differences in volume and pitch with their right index finger. The author follows the dance of provisional logics and illogics, as spaces of formlessness are revealed, re-formed. Air density—or the relative amounts of nitrogen and oxygen; humidity—the amount of water in the air; wind—the atmosphere regaining balance.
