Fourteenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

In primitive and first superior cultures, different elements (human beings, events, natural phenomena, things) were grouped in the same rhythmic category only because they had similar forms. This rhythmic sound substance – which can be reproduced in a song or on the drum – also characterises the individual animal, human being or object, because of their unique shape, form, movement (Schneider, 1970: 171-172). According to Benveniste’s proposal (1966), the original meaning of “rhythm” (ῥυθμός), was the perception of a ‘peculiar way of flowing’, i.e., a “spatial configuration defined by the distinctive arrangement and proportion of elements” (my translation). Now, this definition is very similar to that of form/Gestalt/structure/system, i.e., a whole which is not the mere sum of its parts but is something more and something else, determined by the relationships among the components. Gestalt psychology originated from the perception of sound, and then was also applied to speech, audio-visual and music perception. Audio-vision is an illusion, created by the fusion of the two signals that come together in a new configuration, in a new rhythm, a new form in the subject’s perception (Chion, 1990). In music, gestalt/rhythmic perception originates from a sound field structuring that changes along with the physical data, i.e., the real music structure, and the subject’s experience/expectations, that influence the mode of assumption of perceptual data. Thus, music and perception are involved in a loop of repetition/redundance/assimilation and change/variation/accommodation that reshape constantly our sound field perceptual organization (Marchetta 2010).

Presenters

Gregorio De Gregoris
Research Fellow, Interpreting and Translation (DIT), Center for Transversal Studies on Theatre and Interculturality, University of Bolonia, Forlì, Italy