Compression Mode

The Edge of Sensibility

Stephen Kennedy (University of Greenwich, UK)

$160

Hardback

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English

Bloomsbury Academic USA
06 February 2025

Media studies; History of engineering & technology; Acoustic & sound engineering; Computing: general; Digital lifestyle

This book examines how compression can be understood not only as a digital process enacted through computing, but as a wider economic and political phenomenon that impacts on the ecology of waste, diversity and social inclusivity.

Setting out from the linguistic underpinning of visual space it proceeds to the development of the MP3 algorithm and an examination of the ‘waste’ it creates. As it does so it challenges the received wisdom, prevalent in western thought, that human reason and logic enacted through language is uniquely capable of bringing order to chaos. Returning to the idea of a sonic economy it seeks to reintroduce waste, error, and other discarded material back into our systems of thought, or perhaps more accurately into systems beyond our thought.

By: Stephen Kennedy (University of Greenwich UK)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic USA
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781501369346
ISBN 10: 1501369342
Pages: 160
Publication Date: 06 February 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Preface Introduction Chapter One: A Sound Argument Chapter Two: Language as a Mode of Compression Chapter Three: A Geometry of Listening

Stephen Kennedy is Professor of Critical Theory & Practice at the University of Greenwich, UK. He is the author of Chaos Media: A Sonic Economy of Digital Space (Bloomsbury, 2015) and Future Sounds: The Temporality of Noise (Bloomsbury, 2018). His work involves reformulating the idea of noise as a means of supporting philosophical frameworks capable of accounting for the complex nature of contemporary digital environments.

Reviews for Compression Mode: The Edge of Sensibility

What can music, noise, and sound teach us about the fundamental ways we make sense of the world? This question is at the heart of Stephen Kennedy’s intriguing book Compression Mode. For Kennedy, ‘compression’ is not simply a technical operation characteristic of digital media but a process evident in all the ways we represent or comprehend the world: language, mathematics, cartography, musical notation and more. Compression, then, becomes a metaphysical and epistemological concept with which Kennedy engages key debates in contemporary philosophy and aesthetics. * Christoph Cox, Executive Dean, Eugene Lang College, The New School, USA *