Fragments of Time and Memory

October 4, 2023

‘Fragments of Time and Memory: Matter, Media and the Modern Auditory World,’ in European Journal of English Studies, Vol. 15 (2011), pp. 19-29

This article looks at the emergence and development of the modern auditory world, its relation to time, space and the human body and how these may inform our understanding of material culture today. The first part explores the materialisation of time in phonographic sound as an instance of the fragmentation of modern life, and how this displaced the temporal experience of the premodern world. The second part looks at the impact of magnetic tape recording, which permitted sound artists to produce multitemporal audio collages. The essay concludes with a consideration of how the material culture of sound ends in the human body – its final materialism – just as the old sound objects of analogue technology appear to be dematerialised.

Raymond Moore's Uncertain Places

June 28, 2022

'Raymond Moore’s Uncertain Places,’ Photographies, Vol. 15, No. 2 (2022), pp. 225-239

This article examines the work of late British photographer Raymond Moore (1920–1987) and the ways in which his images of landscapes and objects allow us to understand his work as being driven towards encounters with what I term uncertain places, which is to say places in transition or between states of being that also point the observer of these images to that which lies beyond even photographically-aided perception.

About

Possible Worlds is the website of John Scanlan, a cultural historian and analyst. More.

‘The road has long been one of the most evocative cultural motifs in popular music. In Easy Riders, Rolling Stones John Scanlan provides a fascinating account of the emerging relationship between music and movement, from its origins in the pre-war Mississippi Delta to its deafening denouement in the rock shows of the 1970s.’ — Matthew Gandy, Professor of Geography, University of Cambridge‘A wonderfully evocative musical odyssey.’ — The GuardianEditions: Reaktion (UK), 2015 University of Chicago Press (US), 2015 — ‘The road has long been one of the most evocative cultural motifs in popular music. In *Easy Riders, Rolling Stones* John Scanlan provides a fascinating account of the emerging relationship between music and movement, from its origins in the pre-war Mississippi Delta to its deafening denouement in the rock shows of the 1970s.’ — Matthew Gandy, *Professor of Geography, University of Cambridge*
‘A wonderfully evocative musical odyssey.’ — *The Guardian*
*Editions:*
Reaktion (UK), 2015
University of Chicago Press (US), 2015

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