In the Wake of Sound: on Field recording, Materiality, and Reparative listening

Author

• Ivy FuFollow

Date of Award

Spring 5-19-2026

Document Type

Thesis (Master's)

Department or Program

Sonic Practice

First Advisor

Ash Fure

Second Advisor

Bethany Younge

Third Advisor

H Sinno

Abstract

This thesis develops a practice of field recording, spatial audio composition, and soft-circuit installation grounded in what I call reparative listening: a slow, materially attentive form of attention oriented toward what dominant recording apparatuses suppress, discard, or fail to register. Across five major projects—Fable Upon Ununified Grounds (2023), Cocoon (2024), Tether (2025), Hide & Seek (2026), and Frequency Commons (2026)—I treat sound not as an extractable output but as a relational event shaped by site, body, material, and signal loss. The work draws together Jane Bennett's vibrant materialism, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's theory of definitional crisis and the open secret, Zhuangzi's concept of Tianlai, and the Hakka vocal tradition of Shan'ge, which I inherited from my grandmother and continue to practice across diaspora and grief. Through crocheted conductive yarn circuits, ambisonic composition, geophone-driven performance, and FM transmission, I argue that listening reconfigures the relationship between human and nonhuman agency, and that materiality, voice, and infrastructure can be braided into a single ecological and ethical practice. The thesis is accompanied by analytical studies of Michel Chion, Janet Cardiff, and Oneohtrix Point Never, whose work models how sound can build unstable, hauntological worlds.

Recommended Citation

Fu, Ivy, "In the Wake of Sound: on Field recording, Materiality, and Reparative listening" (2026). Dartmouth College Master’s Theses. 304.
https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/masters_theses/304