November 19, 2021

Sonic Warfare and Animal Control (Re-Cast): Empathy and the Human-Animal Relationship in Sound Art w/ Mandy-Suzanne Wong, Robbie Judkins, and Colleen Plumb

36 minutes

In this re-cast, we examine the sounds humans make in order to monitor, repel, and control beasts. Author Mandy-Suzanne Wong’s Listen, We All Bleed is a creative nonfiction book that explores the human-animal relationship through animal-centered sound art. When we first released this episode in 2019, Listen was a collection of short essays in search of a publisher, but today we are thrilled to announce its official release by New Rivers Press–we’re spreading the word by re-airing this powerful Phantom Power episode.

You’ll hear Mandy-Suzanne reading her unflinchingly reflective prose, mixed with the sound art she illuminates in these essays: works by Robbie Judkins, Claude Matthews, and Colleen Plumb. By turns beautiful and harrowing, these sounds and words reposition us, kindling empathy as we listen through non-human ears. Mack Hagood is joined by former co-host cris cheek for a four-legged listening session.

Links to works by the artists heard in this episode:

Mandy Suzanne-Wong’s Listen, We All Bleed.

Robbie Judkins: Homo Tyrannicus, “Pest” (video), live in London, 2017

Claude Matthews: “DogPoundFoundSound (Bad Radio Dog Massacre)”

Colleen Plumb: “Thirty Times a Minute” (homepage), indoor installation (video)

Transcript

ethereal music plays]

[CRIS CHEEK]

This…is…Phantom Power.

[pig grunting]

[MACK HAGOOD]

Episode 10.

[CRIS]

Animal Control.

[MANDY SUZANNE WONG]

If humans did this to each other, they call it sonic warfare, terrorism or crowd control, depending on who did it and whom they did it to. They call the end result for the victims, that is post traumatic stress, but skunks aren’t human. They’re not even pets. Not like your spaniel who clearly enjoys notions of his own. Can a skunk suffer post traumatic stress? Aren’t they just wild animals? Yes and yes, sound is contact. Fear is a weapon. The wild is here.

[sounds fade out]

[MACK]

Welcome back to another episode of Phantom Power, where we explore the world of sound in the arts and humanities, I’m Mack Hagood.

[CRIS]

And I’m cris cheek.

[MACK]

Hi, cris.

[CRIS]

Hi Mack. How you doing?

[MACK]

I’m okay. We’ve got an interesting episode in store today I think.

[CRIS]

Good.

[MACK]

I spoke with an author of fiction and nonfiction work. Her name is Mandy Suzanne Wong. She hails from Bermuda. She’s got a PhD from the University of California in Los Angeles. You may have heard of the place.

[CRIS]

I have. she’s very interdisciplinary right?

[MACK]

Yeah, she’s another person that I met through that crazy conference for science literature and the arts. Like the other person that we met.

[CRIS]

Brian House.

[MACK]

Brian House, yeah.

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