Like most pioneers of perception James J. Gibson specialised in the visual. However, his model of ecological psychology offers poetic possibilities for our exploration of sonic surfaces. Gibson proposes that our bodies move through the environment in response to what the environment offers—its affordances—thus the environment is also an integral part of our perception. ¶ 1
Gibson’s description of an environment is disarming in its apparent simplicity. He proposes that any terrestrial environment is made of a medium, substances and surfaces. The medium is that which surrounds us, through which an animal moves. It is also the way in which light, colour and sound comes to us. Tim Ingold extends Gibson’s notion to propose that sound is not in the medium but is the medium itself: sound “is what we hear in” (2011, p. 138). This is, of course, a poetic notion, as arguably this “medium” of sound is still reliant on the medium of air (or other matter) to propagate vibrations. Ingold’s point, however, is to emphasise the fluid, non-fixed nature of sound. ¶ 2
All inanimate elements of an environment are made of substances that are solid or semi-solid and do not permit the movement of animal bodies through them. Forming the interface between the medium and the substance is the surface. Surfaces are the skin of substances. What any animal responds to and interacts with are the surfaces of an environment, which indicate particular properties of the substances they envelop. ¶ 3
Gibson suggests that the surfaces that contain substances have a variety of ways in which they respond to activity. They can resist, persist, reflect and absorb (p. 19). We make offers to surfaces, they react, and we amend our actions and understanding based on these responses. Echo-location offers the perfect example of this interaction. ¶ 4
So when we talk of the materials that make sounds we are not just referring to the cellular make-up of a substance. We are responding more specifically to our interaction with the surfaces that form the skin of these substances. This skin directly reflects the deeper material specificities. Perhaps we can then say that a surface actually allows a greater understanding of depth? ¶ 5
For more on Gibson and Inglold see theory anaylsis: chapter 2, “Sonaurality: Ontologies of Sound and Listening”.
Gibson, J. J. (2015). The ecological approach to visual perception (Classic ed.). Psychology Press. (Original work published in 1979).
Ingold, T. (2011). Four objections to the concept of soundscape. In Being alive: Essays on movement, knowledge and description (136–39). Taylor & Francis.