ANIMISM/RESONANCE
Animism is an anthropological term that refers to an ideology found in many spiritualities. It’s the concept that people, animals, geographical and natural phenomenon are all connected by an individual spirit they all possess.
You can find elements of animism as early as Plato, as in his 380BC writings ‘Republic’ he refers to the souls of people and cities. Animus Mundi (world soul) was a commonly held concept among Ancient Greek philosophers. The concept is now however associated with primitive cultures due to 18th century ethnocentrism, specifically the work of Sir Edward Burnett Tylor and his book ‘Primitive Cultures’.
The Siberian Eveny culture engage in a form of animism in which the animals that they hunt are seen as ‘master parents’ to humans. The animal’s parental responsibility is a sacrifice, however this sacrifice can only happen if a certain hierarchy is reached in which the human must eat them to survive. There is a respect there that is not present in western tradition, the hunter exclaims after the kill “you came to me out of your own free will, please have pity on us and do not harm us”.
I believe that a parallel can be drawn between animism and resonance. Every object will emit a natural frequency when struck, if this frequency is exerted on the object, a compounding of waves occurs and the natural vibrations are amplified. For example a glass may have a natural frequency of 575Hz, if the glass has minimal imperfections and a speaker is playing 575Hz next to the object, the glass will vibrate at this frequency. It is possible to shatter the glass through these means.
Resonance can be seen as a force individual to each object, that allows for an interplay between inanimate things. This phenomenon also allows for interplay between object and human, as seen in the case of the millennium bridge.
On June 10th 2000, the millennium bridge was opened to the public. In order to avoid spoiling the view of the Thames and St Pauls cathedral, the architects refused to design the bridge with any tall support struts. Instead they opted for a horizontal suspension bridge, an impressive feat of engineering with a small oversight. The engineers forgot to account for the slight horizontal sway that occurs in a human’s walk. By coincidence the natural frequency of the bridge was equal to the frequency of the horizontal sway of a human’s gate. When this slight swaying is multiplied by the large amounts of foot traffic, the people amplified the frequency and the bridge wobbled quite drastically. This resulted in the bridge being closed, multiple foot traffic tests being conducted and eventually the implementation of dampeners on the suspension cables. Like putting a sock in a guitar bridge.
There is an interplay between human and object due to resonant frequencies, I would like to explore this further for this project. I believe respecting and working with the resonant identity of each object might result in interesting sonic performances whilst also respecting the content of the narrative.
Perkins, M., 2022. What Is Animism?. [online] Learn Religions. Available at: <https://www.learnreligions.com/what-is-animism-4588366> [Accessed 27 September 2022].
Swancutt, K., 2022. Animism. [online] Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Available at: <https://www.anthroencyclopedia.com/entry/animism> [Accessed 27 September 2022].
BYJUS. 2022. Resonance – Definition, Examples & Resonant Frequency With Formula. [online] Available at: <https://byjus.com/physics/resonance/> [Accessed 28 September 2022].
Strogatz, S., 2022. [online] Available at: <https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/11/051103080801.htm> [Accessed 28 September 2022].