Echoes of the Uncanny by Rachael Jennings

SPACE AND SOUND IN THE FILMS OF DAVID LYNCH | RACHAEL JENNINGS

ABSTRACT

The expression and representation of contemporary Architecture is for the most part soundless. Sound is a crucial element to our understanding of space as it describes qualities beyond phenomenon, temporal and emotive aspects that are dependent on culture, identity and memory. The negation of this intangible element of space puts it into the realm of the Uncanny; a paradox used to describe the simultaneously familiar and fearful, it is described by Freud as a return of the repressed. A study of three films by David Lynch reveals many instances of the Uncanny; though spatial doubling, nostalgic domesticity, darkness and shadows Lynch blends the banal and familiar with the terrifying and obscene. Sound however is the key to their unique unnerving quality, it is the elusive element that hints of the secret imperceptible part of space, describing environments that add up to more than the sum of their parts. Given this intrinsic relationship between space and sound we can conclude that it deserves a much greater role within

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the field of Architecture, it can be used as an invaluable tool to better understand the more abstract and transient qualities of our built environment.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

DOMESTIC INVASION

ABSTRACT SPACE | PSYCHIC SPACE

DUALITY | THE DOUBLE

DARKNESS | THE VOID

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

FILMOGRAPHY

APPENDIX I [FILM SYNOPSES]

APPENDIX II [INTERVIEW]

To Ann Kroeber and Liz Greene for all their professional insight. To Hugh Campbell and Samantha Martin-Mcauliffe. And to the staff of Richview Library.

acknowledgements.

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abstract.

With thanks to my tutor Mark Price for his invaluable guidance and advice.

INTRODUCTION

The exploration of sound in architecture often restricts itself to an acoustic study. How sounds travel, the absorptivity or reflectivity of materials shape our aural environment and influence how we use and experience architecture. However the sounds of spaces have a different dimension that is more difficult to quantify. Spaces have an ambiguous elusive identity influenced by our own projections and memories and sound is intrinsic to it. Despite its potentials as a tool for examining the broad spectrum of phenomenological space architecture has at its core a responsibility to its users. Zumthor explores this apparent contradiction, stating; “I believe that contemporary architecture should avail itself of just as radical an approach as contemporary music does. This is, however, only limitedly possible, for although a work of architecture based on disharmony and fragmentation, on broken rhythms, clustering and structural disruptions may be able to convey a message, as soon as we understand its statement our curiosity dies, and all that is left is the question of the buildings practical usefulness” 1 (emphasis added). Thus he concludes that architecture has limited scope as a sonically provocative medium.

Architecture in cinematography however is freed from these apparent social responsibilities and by overlaying sound and space has the power to investigate the subtle relationship between them. By a reverse projection cinema can point to subliminal qualities in architecture which are beyond perception. In this way, with sound and image working together, the synaesthesic effects of film can illuminate aspects of architectural space (such as the infinite) which precede appearances, realities that are beyond phenomenal. Sound features prominently in the films of David Lynch. He even began his career as a film maker, rejecting his chosen path as a painter, because of the soundless quality of his paintings, “When I looked at these paintings, I missed the sound. I was expecting the sound, or maybe the wind to come out. I also wanted the edges to disappear. I wanted to get into the inside. It was spatial”.3 He creates spaces, entire worlds that we are placed inside and then manipulates our perception of them through sound. This connection between sound and space is at the core of his films and the atmosphere they create; “For me film is a very strong desire to marry images and sounds. When I achieve this, I get a real thrill.”4

1. Zumthor, P. (1999) Thinking Architecture. Basel : Birkhäuser 2. Chion, M. (1995) David Lynch, trans. Robert Julian. London : BFI Publishing 3. Lynch, D. (2005) Rodley, C. (Ed.) Lynch on Lynch. revised edition. London: Faber and Faber

The atmosphere created by this unique marriage could be described in terms of the Uncanny, a “peculiar kind of fear, positioned between real terror and faint anxiety”.1 Lynch’s portrayal of the familiar alongside the surreal, the connection and separation of sound and image with varying degrees of synchronicity2 certainly does induce a unique atmosphere of tension and unrest.

1. Freud, S. The Uncanny 2. Chion, M. (1995) David Lynch, trans. Robert Julian. London : BFI Publishing

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His films use sound to suggest another space just beyond the senses, a subliminal realm, again uncanny because of its repressed familiarity. Cinema provides a medium to explore and consider the role of the subconscious space in architecture.

D O MESTIC INVASION “The home is a place where things can go wrong, and the sound comes out of that idea. If you have a room, and its really quiet, or if there’s no sound, you’re just looking at this room. If you want a certain kind of mood, you find the sound that creeps into that silence: that starts giving you a feeling.” (Lynch 1996) Lynch uses the domestic environment as an effective setting for evoking Uncanny effects. Indeed the origins of the word would suggest a preexisting connection with dwelling and home; the German translation, unheimlich, is the opposite of heimlich, meaning “belonging to the house, not strange, familiar, tame, intimate, comfortable, homely etc.” (Daniel Sanders’ Worterbuch der Deutschen Sprache 1860).1 Freud proposes that, “the Uncanny is that class of terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar”, 2 thus by invading the spaces that are most intimate and connected with our elemental understanding of our environment the terror and perversion are all the more acute. The home becomes much more than the sum of its physical parts, representing the emotions and cultural values of its occupants. Gaston Bachelard describes the psychological significance of the house that it takes on a, “deeper phenomenological and symbolic meaning encapsulating our ideas of security, stability, wholeness, and warmth”.3 It is probably due to this elementary connection between home and inhabitant that a domestic disturbance affects us so strongly.

The majority of the action in Eraserhead takes place within the confines of Henry Spencer’s apartment. But to what extent can we describe Henry’s banal apartment as a home? It is one small piece of a monotonous concrete industrial apartment building and he makes little effort to distinguish it as his own territory. Bachelard describes the difficulty in finding intimate dwelling space within an apartment like Henry’s that lacks levels such as the attic and the cellar. “The different rooms that compose living quarters jammed into one floor all lack one of the fundamental principles for distinguishing and classifying the values of intimacy”.4 Without these familiar domestic categories it is difficult to feel truly at home.

fig. 1 Henry’s industrial domestic [screenshot]

1. 2. 3. 4.

quoted in: Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny Bachelard, G. (1969) The poetics of space. Boston : Beacon Press Ibid.

While Henry makes no effort to improve the visual appearance of his dingy apartment, he does modify his surroundings acoustically; by putting on a record he stamps his identity onto the space. As Chion notes this particular record seems to transport him to a sacred space, “The organ sounds of Fats Waller’s joyous swing evoke the vaults of a church ceiling.”1 He chooses the music and sounds of his fantasies because of their potential to expand the physical boundaries of his limited dwelling and in doing so creates a subconscious space more desirable than his actual surrounds.

fig. 2 The “baby” [screenshot]

Chion, M. (1995) David Lynch, trans. Robert Julian. London : BFI Publishing Bachelard, G. (1969) The poetics of space. Boston : Beacon Press Chion, M. (1995) David Lynch, trans. Robert Julian. London : BFI Publishing Lynch, D. (2005) Rodley, C. (Ed.) Lynch on Lynch. revised edition. London: Faber and Faber Chion, M. (1995) David Lynch, trans. Robert Julian. London : BFI Publishing

invasion.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

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Bachelard speaks of his own problems with a lack of “cosmicity” associated with apartment dwelling in Paris. His solution is daydreaming; he imagines the city sounds to be that of the sea and thus finds homely comfort.2 Henry’s acoustic escapism is similar; instead of the sea he imagines the “cosmic winds” 3 of heaven blowing through his apartment. Through contemplation he finds his own version of domestic comfort. His tiny apartment is a place for thought and imagination, according to Lynch it is, “this one little place he had to mull things over”.4

The arrival of Henry’s “baby” causes a monumental shift in acoustics. Its invasion is forewarned by the sounds of gushing and clanging ethereal winds, swooping through the small room. The wind suggests distant landscapes, otherworldly horizons; the apartment seems no longer confined by its dark walls. The baby’s monotonous wailing, droning sounds have the opposite effect, making the space claustrophobic and oppressive. The “derisive sinister atmosphere”5, created by these diametrically opposed worlds existing in the same space evokes a sense of the Uncanny, particularly because of the familiarity of the space; Henry’s apartment is physically the same but the sound and atmosphere is so dramatically changed it is suddenly as menacing as it is familiar.

Also in keeping with the Freudian description of the Uncanny is Lynch’s film “Blue Velvet”. In fact as pointed out by Kuzniar the tale used by Freud in his essay on the Uncanny, Hoffmann’s The Sandman, may have even been the basis for the script, “there is much evidence in Blue Velvet to suggest that its director has attentively read Freud’s source, The Sandman, and has borrowed from it”.2 Certainly there are parallels between the two stories; one particular aspect, a definitive expression of domestic invasion, the theme of voyeurism. In Blue Velvet, Jeffrey, with the intention of uncovering information about a crime, is caught out by Dorothy’s sudden arrival home. He hides in a closet and watches Dorothy undress. He is discovered and after an intense combination of threats and seduction Dorothy bids him to hide in the closet once again due to the arrival of Frank. Frank then verbally and sexually abuses her while Jeffrey peers out from the closet.

Our preconceived notions about the voyeur are subverted; the voyeur is attacked and abused despite having genuine intentions; Jeffrey’s to solve a crime and Nathaniel’s to rescue his father.4 Also in both cases an element of ambiguity is introduced, we are not sure whether we should believe our eyes or ears since they provide a conflicting description. This, according to Freud, also generates the Uncanny effect, “the writer (Hoffmann) creates a kind of uncertainty in us in the beginning by not letting us know, no doubt purposely, whether he is taking us into the real world or a purely fantastic one of his 5 own creation.” , we don’t know whether what Nathaniel sees is a juvenile hallucination or ‘reality’.

Similarly Nathaniel, in the Sandman, hides in a closet and is unexpectedly discovered, “the child Nathaniel wanting to see the dreaded Sandman, hides one night in a closet and, once discovered, is threatened or hallucinates being threatened with enucleation by the man who turns out to be the phantom Sandman, his father’s associate Coppelius.”3 In both case a seemly innocuous piece of furniture provides a mean for their illicit spying then betrays their presence.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Chion, M. (1995) David Lynch, trans. Robert Julian. London : BFI Publishing Kuzniar, A. (1989) Ears Looking at You: E. T. A. Hoffmann’s “The Sandman” and David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet”. Ibid. Ibid. Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny

fig. 4 Jeffrey spies from the closet [screenshot]

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fig. 5 Jeffrey is threatened by Dorothy [screenshot]

invasion. fig. 6 Frank abuses Dorothy [screenshot]

The scene in Dorothy’s apartment where she is abused by Frank has also been interpreted by Chion as a juvenile interpretation of events based on sounds, he suggests that, “A child who overhears the sexual intercourse of adults on the other side of a wall might imagine that the man’s voice is muffled not because he is speaking against the woman’s body or mouth, but because he has stuffed a piece of cloth into his mouth.”1 So perhaps what we are seeing is Jeffrey’s reconstruction of events based on assumptions and naivety. Once again we are left unsure as to the what describes the ultimate ‘truth’ of the space; what is seen or what is heard? Home has deep psychological and cultural implications. The domestic always has an inherent element of familiarity that influences how we perceive space. Witnessing fearful events such as rape, violence and disfigurement in a domestic environment has much greater resonance due to the values we attach to home. The use of sound creates the intimacy necessary for the creation of this particular sense of domestic belonging and for its subsequent uncanny perversion. “the eye is the sense of distance’ while sound itself is near, intimate”.2

1. Chion, M. (1995) David Lynch, trans. Robert Julian. London : BFI Publishing 2. Dewey, J. (1934) Art as Experience. New York : Penguin.

A B S T R A C T SPACE | PSYCHIC SPACE “The naive judgment of the dreamer on waking assumes that the dream - even if it does not come from another world - has at all events transported the dreamer into another world.” (Freud 1900) One of most striking aspects of the use of sound in David Lynch’s films is its ability to transport us into another world, the abstract space of dreams and nightmares. The representation and manifestation of dreams in our built environment has been the subject of much historical discourse and they are deeply rooted in the definition of the Uncanny. Freud describes the dream as an “allegory of the subconscious and the individual’s latent desires and fears.”1 The dream space also uncanny associations with a something repressed that recurs2, in many cases a dream can reproduce a fearful space from childhood.

“The new “surrealists” claim to lift themselves above the brute nature of the object and are ready to recognize only relationships which belong to invisible and subconscious world of the dream. Nevertheless they compare themselves to radio antennae; thus they raise radio onto their own pedestal.”6 By their obsession with and representation of certain tangible objects the artists are criticised for hypocrisy. This illustrates an acute challenge in the representation of the subconscious; how to describe abstract space without relying on the depiction of real objects. Given this ambiguous nature of dreams Lynch often uses sounds to indicate we may have passed into a psychological space.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny Ibid. quoted in: Freud, S. (1889) The Interpretation of Dreams Hanssen, B. (2006) Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project. London : Continuum Vider, A. (1994) The Architectural Uncanny. London: MIT Press Hanssen, B. (2006) Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project. London : Continuum

space. psychic space.

Dream analysis and its visual representation was at the core of the Surrealism, the movement; “enabled the release of a flood of images, rushing across the threshold between sleep and awakening and it provoked a new synaesthetic experience in which sound and image merged, spelling an end to conventional meaning.”4 They saw the dream world as the only defence against the perils of modernism, defined by Breton as, “a solidification of desire in a most violent and cruel automatism.”5

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“It has already been expressly admitted that a dream sometimes brings back to the mind, with a wonderful power of reproduction, remote and even forgotten experiences from the earliest periods of one’s life.” (Hildebrandt 1875)3

Le Corbusier, however, was critical of their supposed preoccupation with the subconscious space;

The relationship between sound and visual perception is investigated in Sobchack’s indepth analysis of the Dolby Digital trailers, created to promote the capabilities of digital sound. She describes how sound can create a process of subjective imagination, whereby we seem to summon forth the image based on the sound preceding it, for example in the “train of shadows” trailer the train, “comes into being on the screen in a temporalised, reverberant, and echoed response to an in augural soundingout that calls the image forth in the formal vagueness of something much like a dream or memory.”1 A similar process is used to create the abstract dream space in Lost Highway. In Fred Madison’s nightmare we are fore-warned of a sinister presence by the echoes of his wife Renee’s frightened cries; low murmurs reminiscent of pagan chanting; mysterious sounds of winds gushing through pipes; the suddenly deafening roar of a fire. Rodley describes these rumbling sounds as, “like an imminent Los Angeles earthquake - trouble from the very core of the planet”,2 simultaneously familiar and imminently fearful. Like the ghost train, materializing out of darkness, the space of Fred’s dream is almost entirely in darkness, a puff of smoke adding another concealing layer as opposed to providing hints as to what we are going to see.

Fred is in bed describing a nightmare to Renee when he suddenly realises he is still dreaming and wakes up with a start. Renee sits up, her face shrouded in shadow. Suddenly, Renee’s face is transformed for an instant into that of the Mystery Man, the revelation accompanied by a screeching crescendo of sound. The effect of a sudden flash of sound like this is described by Burke, “In everything sudden and unexpected we are apt to start; that is we have a perception of danger, and our nature rouses us to guard against it.”3 The sound is all the more unsettling because of the prevalent silence in Fred’s world. It is only when the dream reaches its sonic climax that we are presented with the object of visual terror; the Mystery Man’s face in the place of Renee’s. Again like the Dolby train this visual revelation is preceded by a “silence born of expectation”,4 before acoustic and visual phenomena finally collide with a terrifying image in a domestic setting.

fig. 7 Fred and Renee in bed, the intimate centre of the dwelling [screenshot] 1. 2. 3. 4.

Sobchack, V (2005) When the ear dreams: Dolby Digital and the imagination of Sound. South Atlantic Review Rodley, C. (Ed.) (2005) Lynch on Lynch. revised edition. London: Faber and Faber Burke, E (1796) Philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful. Oxford Sobchack, V (2005) When the ear dreams: Dolby Digital and the imagination of Sound. South Atlantic Review

fig. 8 The sound of a fire “summons forth” its image [screenshot]

fig. 9 A puff of smoke adds a concealing screen [screenshot]

fig. 11 The dream ends, Renee’s face returns to its normal appearance [screenshot]

Images from Fred’s dream sequence

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abstract

fig. 10 The object of terror, Renee’s face as the Mystery Man [screenshot]

It is also Uncanny because we are left unsure as to whether the Mystery Man was a part of Fred’s sleeping or waking life. According to Freud, “an uncanny effect is often and easily produced by effacing the distinction between imagination and reality, such as when something that we have hitherto regarded as imaginary appears before us in reality”1. The borders between dreaming and waking are blurred by the scene being visually consistent in both modes of consciousness, the only indication that we may be perceiving a different reality is in the sounds; the dream voices echo eerily, Fred’s voice being distorted and substituted intermittently by that of the Mystery Man, the sound of a fire increases to a deafening roar, the space is imbued with tension and suspense by sinister reverberations. Then acoustic normality resumes but the uncanny feeling does not leave us as we are unable to draw definitive conclusions about what exactly we’ve just observed. The relationship between the silence and darkness early in Fred’s dream and our perception of what follows could be compared to Bachelard’s study on the poetic image,

The obscurity of the smoky darkness, what Bachelard might describe as the “phenomenal weakness”3 of the visible image in the dream, focuses our attention towards the more ambiguous world of sound and also makes the image of the Mystery Man all the more momentous and ominous when he does appear. The Mystery Man, in all his appearances in the film seems to be somewhat insubstantial, as if he is a hallucination or a figure summoned by Fred’s paranoias. The second time we see him is at a party full of people, it is initially unclear as to whether the other people at the party can see him as he approaches Fred when he is standing alone. Lynch uses sound to depict the abstract nature of the Mystery Man, as McGowan observes, “When the Mystery Man approaches Fred to speak with him, the background noise of the party dims to almost inaudible, as if, in the midst of this crowded party, the Mystery Man and Fred are having a private - intrapsychic conversation”.4

“Murmur and clangour go hand in hand. We are taught the ontology of presentiment. In this tense state of fore-hearing, we are asked to become aware of the slightest indications, and…things are indications before they are phenomena; the weaker the indication, the greater the significance, since it indicates an origin.”2

1. 2. 3. 4.

Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny Bachelard, G. (1969) The poetics of space. Boston : Beacon Press Ibid. McGowan, T. (2000) Finding Ourselves on a “Lost Highway”: David Lynch’s Lesson in Fantasy. Cinema Journal

Thus, through the manipulation of sound, Lynch layers an imaginary subconscious space over what we assume to be the “real” space. However this interpretation is thrown into uncertainty when Fred asks Andy, the host of the party, who the Mystery Man is as he disappears into the crowd. “Fred: Who’s the guy on the stairs? The guy in black? Andy: I don’t know who he is he’s a friend of Dick Laurent I think.”1

These dreamscapes or hallucinations are defined and described almost entirely through sound. As Bachelard suggests, by allowing the visual to fade in importance the sonic description comes to the fore giving the spaces a more powerful and fearful impact. The Uncanny feeling is then created through the mysterious ambiguity of the dream worlds presented to us.

1. Lost Highway. (1996) Lynch, D [videorecording] U.K. : Cinema Club 2. O’Connor, T (2005) The Pitfalls of Media “Representations”: David Lynch’s Lost Highway. Journal of Film and Video 3. quoted in: Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny

space. psychic space.

Lynch explores the elusive qualities of sound in this scene. The Mystery Man hands Fred a phone and tells him to call home, when he does it is the Mystery Man who picks up despite also standing in front of him. A voice being in two places at once, independent from its physical source evokes the uncanny associations with doubling. Thus he obtains an even greater aura of fear and power, according to Rank, “the “double” was originally an insurance against destruction to the ego, an “energetic denial of the power of death, and probably the “immortal” soul was the first “double” of the body.”3 He seems to occupy an immortal space beyond the limits of Fred’s perception adding to the terror of his sporadic visits.

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Therefore we can’t definitively conclude that the Mystery Man is a figment of Fred’s imagination since other people can see him. O’Connor suggests that Fred slips “out of time” into an “ideal space” when the Mystery Man approaches him, that he does it to show Fred his mastery over the time and sound of his perceived reality.2

fig. 13 The Mystery Man approaches Fred at a party [screenshot]

fig. 14 The Mystery Manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s voice in two places at once [screenshot]

fig. 15 Fred enquires about the identity of the Mystery Man [screenshot]

fig. 16 The Mystery Man converses with others at the party [screenshot]

D U A L ITY | THE DOUBLE “It’s a story of love and mystery. Its about a guy who lives in two worlds at the same time, one of which is pleasant and the other dark and terrifying.” (Lynch 1995) A common motif used by Lynch is that of parallel worlds contributing to a single narrative. This has uncanny associations with doubling or involuntary repetition. Otto Rank describes this symptom as coming from “the circumstance of “the double” being a creation dating back to a very early mental stage, long since left behind, and one, no doubt, in which it wore a more friendly aspect. The “double” has become a vision of terror, just as after the fall of their religion the gods took on daemonic shapes.”1 This suggests the contrasting qualities of doubling, the idea of opposites polarising into extremes but originating from the same source, something we often see in Lynch’s films.

In Eraserhead we are confronted with a bleak reality paralleled with the world of Henry’s daydream fantasies. Chion describes how Lynch uses sound to quickly move between these different versions of the same space, “Henry’s room, which vibrates with a range of noises somewhere between the hissing of gas and the sound of a radiator, or between the din of a factory and a cosmic storm depending on the moment.”2 Noises like the radiator sounds describe the nature of the space, highlighting the banality of Henry’s “real”, world. The ethereal “cosmic storm” describes the dual reality of his escapist daydreams.

The techniques for expressing these worlds, how they link and contrast varies throughout Lynch’s films; in some instances the spaces are delineated through sound alone, visually consistent throughout, in some sound is the only connecting element between worlds with entirely different visual identities.

1. quoted in: Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny 2. Chion, M. (1995) David Lynch, trans. Robert Julian. London : BFI Publishing

the double.

fig. 17 sound is used to create parallel worlds in the single space of Henry’s apartment [screenshot]

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The elemental connections between the two constructed realities create a sinister atmosphere, all the more uncanny since the links can be mysteriously obscured for the protagonists.

Blue Velvet features two contrasting worlds existing in the same town; the wholesome all American daytime world of Lumberton and the crime filled underworld inhabited by Frank Booth and his counterparts. Steward notes how the opening of the film immediately shows the divide both sonically and spatially, “This is illustrated on screen by the journey the camera takes through the town, first showing gleaming white picket fences, blooming flowers and waving fireman, and then taking us down through the grass and into the dirt below where bugs eat away at the grass and make horrible chewing and clicking sounds.”1 Again the uncanniness is evoked by the unexpected perversion of something familiar and previously assumed to be incorruptible. Zizek describes the transition between these two polar opposites; describing how we pass from “the hyper-realistically idyllic small-town life of Lumberton” to its “dark underside, the nightmarishly ridiculous obscene universe of kidnapping, sadomasochistic sex, violent homosexuality, and murder.”2

Ann Kroeber, Lynch’s sound designer describes the multiple acoustic overlays required to give these polar moods. For the daytime world “the traffic sounds are very light and have a airy quality to (them)” also elements such as “the ding of a tram stopping, keeping the voices light and warm...birds that have a sort of light cooing quality”, contribute to our reading of the place as safe and familiar, wholesome and romantic. The contrasting dark underworld is defined by, “creating that low end rumble of traffic,... an alarm going off, a siren,..., the low rumbling of a truck starting off has this sinister quality... that ghostly, low hollow sort of wind.”5 Thus our reading of place is strongly influenced by a diverse palate of richly layered sounds.

The two worlds are visually and temporally delineated, (most of the “pleasant”3 world happens during the day, with bright sunshine, trees and picket fences and the “dark and terrifying”4 action is predominantly at night indoors or in the dark confines of a car). The sounds provide a subtle impact on our perception of the spaces.

1. Stewart, M. (2007) David Lynch Decoded. Bloomington : Authorhouse 2. Zizek, S. (2000) The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway. Seattle : University of Washington Press 3. Lynch, D. (2005) Rodley, C. (Ed.) Lynch on Lynch. revised edition. London: Faber and Faber 4. Ibid. 5. Kroeber, A (2012) Sound and Space in the films of David Lynch. Interviewed by Rachael Jennings

fig. 18 [screenshot]

fig. 19 [screenshot]

fig. 20 [screenshot]

Opening sequence; from the wholesome world of Lumberton to its larval underground

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duality.

fig. 21 [screenshot]

The separation of day / night, below / above ground worlds in Blue Velvet, is reminiscent of Walter Benjamin’s description of the metro in Paris; he differentiates between the legible urban world of streets and language and the mysterious underground caverns beneath; But another system of galleries runs underground through Paris: the Métro, where at dusk glowing red lights point the way into the underground world of names. Combat, Elysée, Georges V, Etienne Marcel, Solférino, Invalides, Vaugirad they have all thrown off the humiliating fetters of street or square, and here in the lightning-scored, whistle resounding darkness are transformed into misshapen sewer gods, catacomb fairies. This labyrinth harbours in its interior not one but a dozen blind raging bulls, into whose jaws not one Theban virgin once a year but thousands of anaemic young dressmakers and drowsy clerks every morning must hurl themselves. Street names - Here, underground, nothing more of the collision, the intersection, of names - that which above ground forms the linguistic network of the city. Here each name dwells alone; hell is its demesne. Amer, Picon, Dubonnet are guardians of the threshold.”1

McGowan however proposes that the primary divide in the film is not between the wholesome daytime and crime filled nightime worlds of Lumberton since both worlds have elements that are considered “fantasmatic”,2 such as the extremity and exaggeration of the characters and are in essence, “two sides of the same coin”.3 Instead he proposes another duality; between the world of fantasy, Lumberton, and the world of desire symbolised by Dorothy’s apartment.4 Indeed the sounds and spaces we encounter do seem to validate this proposition; Dorothy’s apartment is dark and shadowy, with muted tones and periods of expectorant silence contrasting strongly to the varied colour palate and constant noise and drama of the world outside. “Whereas both the Lumberton public world and the underworld are depicted as colourful and full, Dorothy’s apartment is a world of empty spaces and dark voids.”5

The two extreme worlds are all the more fearful for their proximity, they lie parallel to each other but have completely opposing natures like the contrasting worlds of Lumberton. The only link, according to Benjamin, is through the sound of the station names although despite having the same aural expression their visual characteristics are polar opposites.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Benjamin, W. (2006) Hanssen, B. (Ed.) Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project. London : Continuum McGowan, T. (2003) Looking for the Gaze: Lacanian Film Theory and its Vicissitudes. University of Texas Press Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

Jeffrey initially inspects the apartment in darkness but even after the lights are switched on the corners are still shrouded in shadow. McGowan suggests that this dim lighting is representative of a world of desire where nothing can be known.1 Jeffrey is put in the difficult position of trying to figure out the nature of her desire. His conclusion is that she has given up on life and wants to die; “I think she wants to die. I think Frank cut the ear I found off her husband as a warning for her to stay alive.”2 According to Chion, Frank’s violence is not merely arbitrary but an attempt to prevent her from, “becoming depressed and slipping into the void”, so that, “by beating her, kidnapping her child and husband, and then cutting off the mans ear”, 3 he is really trying to save her. Thus Frank is also engaged in solving the unfathomable mystery that is Dorothy’s desire.

fig. 22 [screenshot]

fig. 23 [screenshot]

Spaces of Fantasy and Desire in Blue Velvet

McGowan, T. (2003) Looking for the Gaze: Lacanian Film Theory and its Vicissitudes. University of Texas Press Blue Velvet. (1986) Lynch, D [videorecording] USA : Metro Goldwyn Mayer Home Entertainment Chion, M. (1995) David Lynch. trans. Robert Julian. London : BFI Publishing Žižek, S. (1989) The sublime object of ideology. London : Verso

the double.

1. 2. 3. 4.

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However these actions aren’t shown to us in the film, all of the evidence of Jeffrey and Frank’s encounter with traumatic gaze of desire4 is restricted to within Dorothy’s apartment thus clearly presenting it as the spatial representation of desire.

Lost Highway is one of the most definitive examples of this doubling motif. The protagonist, Fred Madison literally transforms into Peter Dayton inhabiting an completely different physical and aural environment. Lynch goes a step further from his usual depiction of psychic space, he shows us the subconscious completely separated into categories of desire and fantasy.1 Lacan proposes that we do not experience ordinary social reality as a world of desire opposed to that of fantasy; but instead that fantasy supports desire, providing compensatory enjoyment in response to the inherent dissatisfactions of desire, providing coherence to our experience of social reality.2 Žižek describes the difference between Lynch’s two different modes of doubling. He compares the separation of a “hyper-realistic idyllic surface”3 with its “nightmarish obverse”4, that we encounter in Blue Velvet, with Lost Highway which contrasts “the fantasmatic horror of the nightmarish noir universe of perverse sex, betrayal and murder”5 and the “despair of our drab, “alienated” daily life of impotence and distrust”6, proposing that perhaps the latter is the most uncanny.

fig. 24 [screenshot] Fred’s “alienated” life of desire unfulfilled

fig. 25 [screenshot] Pete’s “fastasmatic real of self-destructive violence”

“A choice between bad and worse”, Fantasy and Desire in Lost Highway

1. McGowan, T. (2000) Finding Ourselves on a “Lost Highway”: David Lynch’s Lesson in Fantasy. Cinema Journal 2. Lacan, J. (1978) Four fundamental concepts of psycho-analysis; edited by Jacques-Alain Miller; translated from the French by Alan Sheridan. New York : W W Norton. 3. Žižek, S. (2000) The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway. Seattle : University of Washington Press 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid..

The uncanny disorientation provoked by Lost Highway is a result of the representation of desire and fantasy as separate and distinct entities. According to McGowan, “Desire fuels the movement of narrative because it is the search for answers, a process of questioning, an opening to possibility. Fantasy, in contrast, provides an answering to this questioning a solution to the enigma of desire.”1 There is a highly unsettling effect to this unexpected separation of worlds that are ordinarily blended seamlessly. It is also reminiscent of Schelling’s description of anxieties associated with repression which defines the uncanny as that, “which ought to have been kept concealed but 2 which has nevertheless come to light.”

Žižek affirms this analysis, describing Fred’s world as, “depthless, dark, almost surreal, strangely abstract, colourless, lacking substantial density, and as enigmatic as a Magritte painting, with the actors acting almost as in a Beckett or Ionesco play, moving around as alienated automa.” 6 This provides another uncanny reference as according to Jentsch; “One of the most successful devices for easily creating uncanny effects is to leave the reader in uncertainty whether a particular figure is a human being or an Automaton”.7 A minimalist space inhabited by automa; Fred’s apartment becomes another manifestation of the Uncanny space.

fig. 26 Fred’s uncanny Apartment [screenshot]

double.

McGowan, T. (2000) Finding Ourselves on a “Lost Highway”: David Lynch’s Lesson in Fantasy. Cinema Journal quoted in: Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny McGowan, T. (2000) Finding Ourselves on a “Lost Highway”: David Lynch’s Lesson in Fantasy. Cinema Journal Ibid. Ibid. Žižek, S. (2000) The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway. Seattle : University of Washington Press 7. quoted in: Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny

the

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

duality.

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Fred’s desire to solve the mystery of what Renee really wants is portrayed in the first reality; a world without fantasy.3 He attempts to repress his fantasy drive to the extend that it recurs in its most extreme form; in an world devoid of the torturous qualities of desire. In the second reality he is able to enjoy Alice (representing Renee) in a purely fantasmatic way without the paranoia and constant questioning associated with desire.4

The sound and spatial expression of these parallel worlds is consistent with this interpretation. Fred’s ‘world of desire’ is set in a spacious contemporary apartment, the furniture is minimalist and sparse. At night the blank spaces are exaggerated and filled with mysterious shadows. McGowan suggests this emptiness creates the sense of something lacking which fuels the movement of desire, adding that by minimising the depth of field Lynch creates a sense of depthlessness appropriate to this world devoid of fantasy.5

Sharply contrasting this is Peter’s world of fantasy. Žižek defines fantasy as, “a construction, as an imaginary scenario filling out the void, the opening of the desire of the Other: by giving us a definitive answer to the question, what does the other want?”1 Therefore fantasy in its normal manifestation is filling in the blanks to these voids, or in a spatial sense potentially shedding light on the shadows. Pete’s world is instantly more illuminated than Fred’s, after the transformation in the same prison cell a light shines from above revealing more of the cells spatial qualities. Pete’s world also has a deeper, more realistic depth of 2 field and is filled with brightness and colour. So paradoxically, the world of fantasy has a stronger “sense of reality” and a greater depth of sounds and smells.3 Our initial introduction to his home life shows him lying on a sun bed in a garden, its a beautiful sunny day and in the background is a white picket fence and a dog. A simple, content scene that makes a sharp contrast with Fred’s shadowy urbane existence. Lynch describes this scene as, “like starting a new life. It’s Pete’s new life - like waking up and seeing children and wondering about things.”4 The naive fantasy of an ideal world, a fresh start.

Sound also plays a part in differentiating the two worlds. Silence is used to heighten our awareness of the mysterious shadows of Fred’s world where there is a general absence of sound. The silence forces us to address the unbearable characteristics of a world without the reprieve of fantasy. Figgis describes silence as, “very disconcerting for an audience because you’ve been programmed and conditioned to never have a direct confrontation with the film.”5 Silence forces this confrontation; by eliminating sound, the suspension of disbelief normally associated with a cinematographic narrative is also discarded so we must encounter the tension of sporadic dialogue in a sparse space filled with shadows.

fig. 26 [screenshot] 1. Žižek, S. (2000) The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway. Seattle : University of Washington Press 2. McGowan, T. (2000) Finding Ourselves on a “Lost Highway”: David Lynch’s Lesson in Fantasy. Cinema Journal 3. Žižek, S. (2000) The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway. Seattle : University of Washington Press 4. Lynch, D. (2005) Rodley, C. (Ed.) Lynch on Lynch. revised edition. London: Faber and Faber 5. Figgis, M. (2003) Soundscape : the School of Sound lectures, 1998-2001 / edited by Larry Sider, Diane Freeman and Jerry Sider. London : Wallflower 6. quoted in: Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny

Pete’s world is filled with lively chatter from the start, he has, “a “full” life: parents, friends, job and a personal (albeit criminal) history”,1 and all these distractions mean that Pete is constantly busy and surrounded by noise, he never has to confront lonely paranoias born of silence like Fred. In fact the first instance where we are reminded of Pete’s “previous life” as Fred is when he is working in the garage and another employee is playing jazz music similar to the music Fred played in the club on saxophone. Pete immediately turns it off without offering an explanation, “Phil: What’d you change that for? I liked that. 2 Pete: Well I don’t”

fig. 28 [screenshot]

fig. 29 [screenshot]

Pete’s “full” life

Spatial doubling produces uncanny effects in many instances in Lynch’s films; sound is used to influence our perception of these spaces, defining the division between the worlds or at times providing links between them indicating that they form two parts of a single narrative.

the double.

1. McGowan, T. (2000) Finding Ourselves on a “Lost Highway”: David Lynch’s Lesson in Fantasy. Cinema Journal 2. Lost Highway. (1996) Lynch, D [videorecording] U.K. : Cinema Club 3. Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny

duality.

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Lynch uses this as an opportunity to show the protagonist sonically experiencing uncanny effects; the “hidden, familiar thing that has undergone repression and then emerged from it”.3 The familiar thing, the world of desire, his life as Fred, is triggered into his memory through sound. He has, we assume, a flash back to playing sax in the nightclub, but through confusion and fear immediately tries to repress the image of a space he used to inhabit.

fig. 27 [screenshot]

D A R KNESS | THE VOID “While light space is eliminated by the materiality of objects, darkness is “filled”, it touches the individual directly, envelopes him, penetrates him, and even passes through him: hence the ego is permeable for darkness while it is not so for light.” (Caillois 1935) Freudean analysis puts certain space and sound characteristics into a another category of the Uncanny, “Concerning the factors of silence, solitude and darkness, we can only say that they are actually elements in the production of that infantile morbid anxiety from which the majority of human beings have never become quite free” (emphasis added).1 The phenomenon of darkness and its spatial implications have been explored at length in architectural movements throughout history. This spatial preoccupation, according to Vidler, stems from the fact that “space is assumed to hide, in its darkest recesses and forgotten margins, all the objects of fear and phobia that have returned with such insistency to haunt the imaginations of those who have tried to stake out spaces to protect their health and happiness.”2 So this specific fear of darkness is born out of our paranoid projections, the mysterious is filled with the fearful. This architecture of shadows is presented to us in the depiction of Fred Madison’s home, and also in Dorothy’s apartment in Blue Velvet. The shadows provide us with ambiguous space, the dread is merely suggested, we fill the shadows ourselves with the fears of the protagonists and with fears of our own. Burke writes that, “night increases our terror more than anything else; it is in our nature, that, when we do not know what may happen us, to fear the worse that can happen us.”3

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

This is certainly the effect that Lynch’s nightmarish worlds have on us. Once again what creates the sense of the Uncanny is that the fearful thing is one of our own creation. Boullée, a neoclassical architect from the 18th century was obsessed with “absolute darkness as the most powerful instrument to induce that state of fundamental terror claimed by Burke as the instigator of the sublime”.4 His funerary architecture has a similar effect to the shadows of Lynch’s domestic environments. His creation was that of a “buried architecture”, claiming that if he, “was to create sunken architecture (he) had to ensure that the construction was satisfying as a whole at the same time and make the onlooker realize that a part of it was concealed underground.”5 Onto the hidden part we project our fears of death and the unknown.

Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny Vider, A. (1994) The Architectural Uncanny. London: MIT Press Burke, E (1796) Philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful. Oxford Vider, A. (1994) The Architectural Uncanny. London: MIT Press Boulee, E (1986) Architecture, Essai sur l’art Paris : Hermann

He also describes his “architecture of shadows”, and the melancholy of a “monument consisting of a flat surface, bare and unadorned, made of a light absorbent material, absolutely stripped of detail, its decoration consisting of a play of shadows, outlined by still deeper shadows.”1

Kroeber describes the inherent complexity of creating these nightmarish sounds; multiple layers of sound are combined and distorted to 4 produce what accompanies a single image. We therefore cannot possibly comprehend exactly what is producing these low rumbling sounds, their source is mysteriously obscured which adds to the sense of the Uncanny.

fig. 29 Paris Cemetary, Boullée

Boulee, E. (1986) Architecture, Essai sur l’art Paris : Hermann Burke, E. (1796) Philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful. Oxford : Oxford Ibid. Kroeber, A. (2012) Sound and Space in the films of David Lynch. Interviewed by Rachael Jennings

the void.

1. 2. 3. 4.

darkness.

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Similarly the walls of Fred’s dream are more deeply cloaked in shadow than in his waking life. The darkness of his already solitary, shadowy existence is exaggerated in his nightmare as his fears and suspicions reach breaking point. The reasoning behind the uncanny fears associated with shadows and darkness is also explored by Burke, who claims our terror lies in the fact that we perceive the shadows as infinite, “There are scarcely any things which can become the objects of our senses that are really, and in their own nature infinite. But the eye not being able to perceive the bounds of many things, they seem to be infinite and they produce the same effect as if they were really so.”2 The horror lies in the fact that we know neither what the shadows contain nor where they end.

Thus it is this layering of shadows architecturally and cinematographically that creates a depth of mystery and obscurity evoking a profound fear of the unknown. This is reinforced by an uncertain and sinister soundscape. Burke states that some, “low, confused, uncertain sounds, leave us in the same fearful anxiety concerning their causes, that no light, or uncertain light does concerning the objects that surround us”.3 Thus he suggests a link between the uncanny effects of both darkness and silence.

The previously mentioned separation of fantasy and desire has another effect, it reveals something underlying the structure of reality; a “traumatic Real”.1 According to McGowan this revelation is strange and fearful for us because in our normal experience of reality the combination of fantasy and desire obscures this “Real” so we are saved the dread of ever having to stare into the void.2 The paintings and collages of Max Ernst deal with this specific horror; he developed his frottage technique as a reaction to the “virginity complex”3 associated with a blank sheet of paper. By his automatic technique he could 4 make “at least something out of it” , countering the fear of the void. Indeed similar to Lynch’s films this technique also creates separate worlds within a singular image, Ernst, “creates this objectivity in that the structure (he) rubs through is subordinate to a pictorial object that has nothing to do with that structure. Two planes of reality coincide. A structure that refers a priori to something unrelated to the pictorial object, that at first glance does not seem adequate, encounters the pictorial object that has hither never been expressed in extra pictorial structural elements.”5 Two structures exist in parallel, the pictorial image created by Ernst and the surface rubbed to create the image. His collage, the Entire City, represents his fear of the void, it depicts a city devoid of gaps; a metropolis that is, “full and saturated - like a crystal”. 6

This contrasts with Lynch’s exposure of the void, while Ernst creates a world that completely negates its existence or at least safeguards against its appearance Lynch breaks down our social constructs in an effort of give us a terrifying glimpse of what lies beneath. This occurs at two points in the film, the moments where the worlds of desire and fantasy collide. “In Lost Highway the moment of transition to fantasy is clearly a traumatic moment: the camera (from Fred’s point of view) is moving down the middle of a highway and then swerves, heading straight for Pete, who is standing by the side of the road”. 7

fig. 29 [screenshot]

Traumatic moment: a car swerves towards Pete

fig. 29 [screenshot]

A brief glimpse into the void

1. Žižek, S. (2000) The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway. Seattle : University of Washington Press 2. McGowan, T. (2000) Finding Ourselves on a “Lost Highway”: David Lynch’s Lesson in Fantasy. Cinema Journal 3. Ernst, M. (1969) Max Ernst: Frottages [by] Werner Spies. trans. Joseph M. Bernstein. London : Thames & Hudson 4. ibid. 5. Spies, W. (1969) Max Ernst: frottages [by] Werner Spies. trans. Joseph M. Bernstein. London : Thames & Hudson 6. ibid. 7. McGowan, T. (2000) Finding Ourselves on a “Lost Highway”: David Lynch’s Lesson in Fantasy. Cinema Journal

It also occurs towards the very end of the film at the hut in the desert when Pete turns back into Fred. Herzogenrath suggests that Fred’s murder of Renee is the, “repressed truth of Fred”,1 and following that states the desert cabin is a, “recurring image of that repression”.2 Once again we witness the Uncanny associations with the return of the repressed.3

Lynch illustrates the violence and horror involved in these brief glimpses into the void through extreme images and sounds that are almost unbearable to hear and see; explosions, screams, tearing metal, bright lights, fire, we are left in no doubt as to the traumatic nature of these scenes for the protagonists and the viewer.

Both moments are fuelled by extreme imagery; the first transformation a violent car crash with Pete’s girlfriend and parents screaming hysterically. We are then presented briefly with a symbolic glimpse of the void which, “appears momentarily on the screen as a mysterious opening that expands and threatens to envelop the spectator - only to disappear almost instantly”.4 The second desire/ fantasy collision is accompanied by a blinding light, illuminating the impossible horror of staring into the void. This is coupled with the exploding/ reforming desert cabin, another violent inconceivable image.

fig. 29 [screenshot]

darkness. 1. Herzogenrath, B (1999) On the Lost Highway: Lynch and Lacan, Cinema and Cultural Pathology. Other Voices 1.3 2. Ibid. 3. Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny 4. McGowan, T. (2000) Finding Ourselves on a “Lost Highway”: David Lynch’s Lesson in Fantasy. Cinema Journal

the void.

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Impossible image: the exploding/ reforming cabin

In Architecture we often witness the uncanny sense of the thing hiding in the void; in the “poche” or interstitial spaces in our buildings where we conceal plumbing, electricity wires and services;1 things we want to forget about, visually repress. This void takes on a more sinister manifestation in horror films, “this dark space between the walls is where horrible threats lurk (from spying machines to monsters or animals like cockroaches and rats)”.2 Lynch uses sound to suggest the omnipresence of this hidden void. In Blue Velvet, it is the insects scurrying around the dark crevices of the ground beneath. In Lost Highway the looming presence of the unknowable void is also suggested by insect noises. When his fantasy life with Alice starts to unravel, Pete, “watches a black widow crawl up his wall, listening to bugs pang against his bedroom light bulb, desperately attracted to their certain deaths.”3 Insects are synonymous with a fearful void as they always seem to emerge from some unseen crack; from an unseen and unknown realm in a place that is known and familiar. Lynch describes Lost Highway as being, “about a couple who feel that somewhere, just on the border of consciousness - or on the other side of that border - are bad, bad problems.”4

The motifs of darkness and the void in Lynch’s films are intricately linked; darkness5 creates an awareness of the lurking and mysterious void. The sounds also have the uncanny effect of suggesting the existence of the void without ever having to visually reveal it.

fig. 29 [screenshot]

Insect sounds suggest the presence of a fearful void

He uses sound as a tool to explore these problems and also to reveal the nature of the space beyond consciousness.

1. Žižek, S. (2010) Living in the end times. London : Verso 2. Ibid. 3. O’Connor, T (2005) The Pitfalls of Media “Representations”: David Lynch’s Lost Highway. Journal of Film and Video 4. Lynch, D. (2005) Rodley, C. (Ed.) Lynch on Lynch. revised edition. London: Faber and Faber 5. Burke, E (1796) Philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful. Oxford.

CONCLUSION

David Lynch’s films present a rich and dense world, one that is simultaneously familiar and eerily fearful thus he illustrates the elusive paradox that is the Uncanny space. According to Rodley, “His sensitivity to the textures of sound and image, to the rhythms of speech and movement, to space, colour and the intrinsic power of music, mark him as unique in this respect.”1

fig. 29 Edward Hopper. Room in New York

Fearful in the familiar: Modern angst in everyday life

1. Rodley, C. (Ed.) (2005) Lynch on Lynch. revised edition. London: Faber and Faber 2. Ernst, M. (1969) Max Ernst: Frottages [by] Werner Spies. trans. Joseph M. Bernstein. London : Thames & Hudson 3. Žižek, S. (2000) The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway. Seattle : University of Washington Press 4. Rosenau, H. (1976) Boullée & visionary architecture : including Boullée’s ‘Architecture, essay on art’ London : Academy Editions.

conclusion

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He creates spatial familiarity by using the domestic realm and settings that evoke nostalgia and memory. Sound allows for the creation of another territory; the psychic space of nightmares and daydreams, of hallucinations and visions. The intangible nature of this subconscious space makes it difficult to explore within the field of architecture despite its critical presence in the spatial and societal domain.

Certainly many of the definitions about what makes a space “unheimlich” exist within the visual realm. This is exemplified by visual artists such as Max Ernst whose work is derived from a Freudean fear of the void 2 or Edward Hopper who conveys existential fears and modern angst in scenes of the familiar and everyday.3 There are also historical examples of architects such as Boullée whose funereal architectural of shadows symbolise the ambiguity and melancholy associated with death and the afterlife.4

Sound, however, is also intrinsic to our understanding of the Uncanny space, which is why film, with its simultaneous depiction of sound and image, provides an excellent medium for its exploration. Indeed the more elusive characteristics of sound in film, the lack of a frame or limiting container1 puts it in a realm of mysterious infinitude that is more analogous with the Uncanny than the moving pictures it accompanies. The work of Ann Kroeber, seems to reinforce this conclusion. When designing sound for Lynchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s films she used a contact mic, able to capture microscopic sounds imperceptible to the human ear, to describe the ethereal sounds of space. When she by chance heard the actual sounds, recorded by NASA, of outer space she discovered them to be almost identical to the sounds of inner space she had been capturing.2 Burke lists largeness of scale as an instigator of the sublime,3 but this example of the macro and micro sounds being essentially the same illustrates the lack of scale inherent in sound. Perhaps it is this quality that has resulted in the subsidiary nature of sound in the scale dominated world of architectural design.

fig. 29 Modular Man. Le Corbusier

Scale dominated world of Architectural design

1. Chion, M. (1994) Audio-vision : sound on screen. edited and translated by Claudia Gorbman ; with a foreword by Walter Murch. Chichester : Columbia University Press 2. Kroeber, A (2012) Sound and Space in the films of David Lynch. Interviewed by Rachael Jennings 3. Burke, E (1796) Philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful. Oxford

Despite its role in the past there seems to be an increasing awareness of the importance of sound in contemporary architectural discourse. This was clearly highlighted in the winners of the 2011 RIBA President’s Medal Student Awards. The winner of the Part 2 Medal, Kibwe Tavares, presented a short film about a futuristic vision of London where a city suburb is inhabited by robots programmed to work as slaves for humans. The winner of the Part 1 medal, An Acoustic Lyrical Mechanism, by Basmah Kaki, explores a way of converting the kinetic energy and noise pollution created by a granite quarry into ambient sounds for a sacred spaces.1 Both projects consider an acoustic dystopia as a way of illustrating a social or political issue that is inherently spatial.

Sound describes a realm that is beyond the visible, giving substantial density to the subconscious space. Like the hidden “poche”2 spaces in buildings, invisible but still present and necessary, what leads to the uncanny attributes of this type of space is the denial of its existence. When Patrick Kavanagh describes, “a footfall tapping secrecies of stone”3, if is as if he if referring to this transcendental domain. Once again sound whispers of its mysterious existence, it echoes and resonates asserting the presence of a space beyond perception. Perhaps this is the role of the, “disharmony” and 4 “broken rhythms” that Zumthor dismisses; to jar us into awareness of this particular space.

1. RIBA (2011) The President’s Medals Student Awards 2. Žižek, S. (2010) Living in the end times. London : Verso 3. Kavanagh, P. (1984) Iniskeen Road: July Evening. The complete poems / collected, arranged and edited by Peter Kavanagh. Newbridge, Co. Kildare : Goldsmith Press 4. Zumthor, P (1999) Thinking architecture. Basel : Birkhäuser 5. Baron-Cohen, S & Harrison, J. (1997) Synaesthesia : classic and contemporary readings. Oxford : Blackwell. Synaesthesia is defined as occurring when stimulation of one sensory modality automatically triggers a perception in the second modality. For example Lynch uses sound stimulation to trigger a spatial perception.

conclusion

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Lynch effectively uses Synaesthesia5 to illuminate certain qualities of space that go beyond appearances, and allude to an elusive ‘thing-in-itself’. This sublime terrain ought to be kept in mind: in architecture, the repressed forever returns.

[B IBLIOGRAPHY] Bachelard, G. (1969) The poetics of space. Boston : Beacon Press. Baron-Cohen, S & Harrison, J. (1997) Synaesthesia : classic and contemporary readings. Oxford : Blackwell Burke, E (1796) Philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful. With an introductory discourse concerning taste, and other additions. Oxford Caillois, R. (1935) Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia. Minotaure 7 Chion, M. (1995) David Lynch, trans. Robert Julian. London : BFI Publishing. Chion, M. (1994) Audio-vision : sound on screen. edited and translated by Claudia Gorbman ; with a foreword by Walter Murch. Chichester : Columbia University Press. Dewey, J. (1934) Art as Experience. New York : Penguin. Larry Sider, Diane Freeman and Jerry Sider (Ed.)(2003) Soundscape : the School of Sound lectures, 1998-2001. London : Wallflower. Freud, S. (1919) The Uncanny. Freud, S. (1889) The Interpretation of Dreams. Hanssen, B. (2006) Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project. London : Continuum. [Herzogenrath, B (1999) On the Lost Highway: Lynch and Lacan, Cinema and Cultural Pathology. Other Voices 1.3] Lacan, J. (1978) Four fundamental concepts of psycho-analysis; edited by Jacques-Alain Miller; translated from the French by Alan Sheridan. New York : W W Norton. Kay, S. (2003) Ĺ˝iĹžek: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press Kavanagh, P. (1984) The complete poems / collected, arranged and edited by Peter Kavanagh. Newbridge, Co. Kildare : Goldsmith Press Kroeber, A (2012) Sound and Space in the films of David Lynch. Interviewed by Rachael Jennings. (Skype interview February 2012)

Kuzniar, A. (1989) Ears Looking at You: E. T. A. Hoffmann’s “The Sandman” and David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet”. South Atlantic Review, Vol. 54, No. 2 (May, 1989), pp. 7-21 Available from: http://www.jstor.org/ stable/3200548. [Accessed: 12/01/2012 09:44] Le Corbusier (1970) Towards a new architecture. translated from the French by Frederick Etchells. London : Architectural Press Lynch, D. (2005) Rodley, C. (Ed.) Lynch on Lynch. revised edition. London: Faber and Faber. Markos, D. (1994) Ideas in things : The poems of William Carlos Williams. Rutherford : Fairleigh Dickinson McGowan, T. (2003) Looking for the Gaze: Lacanian Film Theory and its Vicissitudes. Cinema Journal, Vol. 42, No. 3 pp. 27-47. University of Texas Press. Available from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1225903. [Accessed: 13/01/2012 08:45] McGowan, T. (2000) Finding Ourselves on a “Lost Highway”: David Lynch’s Lesson in Fantasy. Cinema Journal, Vol. 39, No. 2 pp. 51-73. University of Texas Press. Available from: http://www.jstor.org/ stable/1225552. [Accessed: 12/01/2012 11:16] O’Connor, T (2005) The Pitfalls of Media “Representations”: David Lynch’s Lost Highway. Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 57, No. 3, pp. 14-30 Illinois : University Film & Video Association. Available from: http:// www.jstor.org/stable/20688495 [Accessed 12/01/2012 11:29] RIBA (2011) The President’s Medals Student Awards. Available at: http://www.presidentsmedals.com/ [Accessed 13/02/2012 10:05] Rosenau, H. (1976) Boullée & visionary architecture : including Boullée’s ‘Architecture, essay on art’ London : Academy Editions.

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Sobchack, V (2005) When the ear dreams: Dolby Digital and the imagination of Sound. Film Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 4, pp. 2-15. California: University of California Press. Available from: http://www.jstor.org/ stable/10.1525/fq.2005.58.4.2. [Accessed: 13/01/2012 09:03] Spies, W. (1969) Max Ernst: Frottages [by] Werner Spies. trans. Joseph M. Bernstein. London : Thames & Hudson. Stewart, M (2007) David Lynch Decoded. Bloomington : Authorhouse. Troyen, C (2007) Edward Hopper. London : Thames & Hudson Vider, A. (1994) The Architectural Uncanny. London: MIT Press Žižek, S. (2010) Living in the end times. London : Verso

Žižek, S. (2000) The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway. Seattle : University of Washington Press Žižek, S. (1989) The sublime object of ideology. London : Verso Zumthor, P (1999) Thinking architecture. Basel : Birkhäuser

[F ILM OGRAPHY] Eraserhead. (1976) Lynch, D. [videorecording] USA: American Film Institute Blue Velvet. (1986) Lynch, D. [videorecording] USA : Metro Goldwyn Mayer Home Entertainment

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Lost Highway. (1996) Lynch, D [videorecording] U.K. : Cinema Club

A P P E N D IX I [FILM SYNOPSES] ERASERHEAD (1976) Henry spencer arrives home to his banal concrete apartment in an industrial landscape to be informed by an attractive neighbour that his estranged girlfriend, Mary, has invited him for dinner in her parents’ house. During dinner he is informed that Mary has recently given birth to his baby which is still at the hospital. The baby, which turns out to be disfigured, and Mary move into Henry’s apartment but she moves out when the baby’s persistent wailing becomes unbearable. Henry minds the baby and fantasises about a Lady in the Radiator singing to him. After being is seduced by the attractive neighbour he enters into a dreamworld where his head is pushed off by the baby growing inside him and then turned into an eraser on top of a pencil in a factory. A dream about the Lady in the Radiator stamping on worm-like creatures motivate him to kill the baby which results in a cosmic crash. Henry and the Lady in the Radiator embrace in a blinding flash of light. BLUE VELVET (1986) Jeffrey Beaumont returns to his home town Lumberton after his father suffers a stroke. He finds a severed ear in a field which leads him to an investigation together with the police detective’s daughter, Sandy. Their investigations lead them to the apartment of Dorothy Vallens, a local singer who is embroiled in a chaotic criminal underworld of violence and drugs and whose son and husband has been kidnapped by a sociopath, Frank Booth. After breaking into her apartment, Jeffrey is threatened and seduced by Dorothy also witnessing Frank’s masochistic abuse of Dorothy. Jeffrey returns to Dorothy’s apartment and is discovered by Frank who takes him on a violent joyride with his gang. He is then beaten up and left overnight on the side of the road. From the hospital he tells the police detective of Frank’s criminal plot and returns to Dorothy’s apartment once more to find the dead bodies of Dorothy’s husband and the detective’s partner, Detective Gordon. Jeffrey manages to outsmart Frank and shoots him in the head. Days later we are shown Jeffrey and Sandy happy and in love and Dorothy and her son reunited.

LOST HIGHWAY (1996) Fred Madison, a jazz sax player, suspects his wife, Renee, of having an affair. Videotapes of the couple, showing them asleep in bed, arrive outside their house. Fred dreams about a Mystery Man who then appears in reality at a party. Another tape shows Fred by Renee’s butchered body. Fred is arrested for her murder. Fred suffers headaches and the next day mechanic Pete Dayton wakes up in his cell. Pete resumes his life despite a certain confusion about what happened the night before he woke up in jail. He does some work for Mr. Eddy, a wealthy customer who works in pornography and starts a passionate affair with his girlfriend Alice (who looks identical to Renee). After Mr. Eddy finds out about them Alice convinces him to rob Andy so they can escape. Pete accidentally kills Andy and they drive to a cabin in the desert. Alice suddenly rejects Pete and he starts to turn back into Fred. The Mystery Man and Mr. Eddy reappear. Fred kills Mr. Eddy and disappears along a dark Highway.

A P P E N D IX II [INTERVIEW | ANN KROEBER*]

*Ann Kroeber is a sound designer who, together with her late husband Alan Splet, worked closely with Lynch on the sound design of films such as Blue Velvet, Dune, the Elephant Man and Lost Highway. She is renowned for her ground breaking work with a FRAP [Frequency Response Audio Pickup] contact microphone. In 1999 she set up Soundmountain, an archive of sound effects combining work from her late husband and her own sound recordings. She is also highly regarded for her work recording animal sounds and was an effects recordist on the Black Stallion which won an Academy Award for Sound Effects editing in 1980. RJ: I’m interested in sound and space and how they interact, from the perspective of a sound designer to what extent do you design sounds with a space in mind? AK: Well generally the sound is different from close up or in the distance, for example the distant sound of a dog barking in the background. I generally record the sound close up then take some of the high end of the sound out and then lower the quality to make it sound farther away. Also blending ambiences to create a more distant kind of feel. RJ: So how we perceive the environment in the scene, for example whether it is inside or outside and the resulting acoustic effects, are these added afterwards or is taken into consideration during the recording? AK: When you’re working in a feature film, what you want to do is get the dialogue as clean as possible and so the microphones are positioned to pick up the dialogue very clean and close up and then the sound effects are added in later and made to seem like they’re natural and set in to the picture that you’re seeing but actually an incredible amount of work goes in to splicing those cuts in order to get the feel that you want. In David Lynch films the ambiences are often very different, what you’re using

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to create a city ambience, could be the inside of a refrigerator! But still it gives the feel that you’re in a certain place. RJ: One thing that always strikes me about David Lynch films is that the sounds you’re hearing are not quite in this realm, its almost like a psychic or dream space. Can you think of any examples of ways that were used to give this impression? AK: Oh well there are a bazillion different sounds that give that impression in David’s films, you’re absolutely right he creates those sort of dream worlds and he just has an idea about the type of sound world he wants to create. One of the things he uses is he tends to use a lot of low-end material, he likes sounds from that range.

I’ll give you an example, one time he called me up and wanted some sounds for Lost Highway, he wanted some “dreamy winds”, and for most people, when I thought of dreamy winds I was thinking, high kind of angelic sounds, to me dreamy is sort of sweet and dreamy, and I was putting together and designing sounds; layering different sound together to get this soft and wafty kind of thing and I mentioned it to David and there was a sort of silence on the phone and all of a sudden it just hit me like a thunderbolt; what in the world was I thinking? This is David Lynch! For crying out loud, dreamy doesn’t mean that, dreamy means nightmares! Really low…much lower, and I said “oh David I’m sorry”, and we laughed! And I went back and got, completely the opposite! I could talk to you for days and months about the kind of sounds he uses to create those ambiences! RJ: I read in an interview about your discovery of the contact mic, how did it affect your pursuit of these type of sounds? AK: When I was over in England, working on the Elephant man I happened to just turn on a BBC documentary and they happened to have a contact mic on a guitar and you couldn’t hear the drums next to it when they recorded it and I thought; oh my god! Just to be able to isolate sounds like that! Its so great because then you have so much more control on sounds, you can isolate them and then you don’t have the whole panoply of other sounds around you to interfere with the sound. And so I got back to the states and started talking to people here in San Francisco and I found out that the guy who invented the microphone, whose name is Arnie Lazarus actually lived in San Francisco so I thought; oh my goodness! So I went to see him and I talked to Alan (Splet) about it and it kind of became my little project, you know, a sort of fascination; I wanted to learn more about this microphone. It took him about three months, to design this microphone for me, we went back and forth, just to listen to it. I wanted to be able to put it on to things that made really loud sounds, like a steel mill to hear what that would be like. I got back to this place where I was working, sort of a 7 story office building, with air conditioning ducts and stuff we didn’t have open windows and I just started experimenting with stuff, you know? I put it on a ventilator and usually it just sounds like a bunch of white noise, its got a “whoooo” type of noise, and when I put it on that, Rachael, it was just incredible! It was like a whole world of sound just opened up! A whole world of sound was going on inside that ventilator! It was like an alarm kept building up and just this world, this magical quality that it had! It was unbelievable! Holy smokes!

So I played for Alan (Splet) and he was like; “Oh my goodness!” He sent me out about 3 days a week and I just experimented! I was on a world of discovery to find out what’s inside. Sometimes things that I thought would be cool were really not. Usually that happened, you know; you’d make a plan, try and contrive something and it just wouldn’t work. But you know, trying things, Oh my goodness, gracious! In Dune, there are these giant worms that move through the desert, its a thing in space and we were trying to figure out what they’d sound like, moving along the sand what I used was my little contact microphone, I put it underneath a piece of plexiglass, [I found plexiglass transmitted the most natural sound, it didn’t colour the sound, you know, if you put it on a little piece of metal, it sounds kind of metallic. Regular glass would be a little glassy but plexiglass is the most natural], so anyway I went into a kids sandbox put the microphone under a piece of plexiglass and put sand on the plexiglass and just ran my fingers over it and it sounded so intense! Just by slowing it down, it was bigger! It was just this big ginormous worm! You know we do things like that all the time, so many examples. With the contact mic we were trying to figure out what outer space sounds like so we created these worlds of outer space; we went to factories and recorded labs at UC Berkley, all the machines going, sort of gassy sounds. A lot of the sounds didn’t make it into the movie because the images changed; we hadn’t seen the film when we started. It was really quite remarkable, the type of stuff that got captured. Like I mentioned to you in that email to find out that outer space actually sounded like the inner space sounds we were creating! That it really sounded so similar! RJ: Fascinating! Its interesting that you mentioned, “dreamy winds” because it seems like a motif that comes up in a lot of Lynch’s films, moments where a character enters into some sort of

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abstract space as if they are passing through a portal to another dimension. For example in Blue Velvet when Jeffrey ascends the stairs to Dorothy Vallens apartment for the first time, there is this clanging, eerie wind. I suppose I’m curious as to how these moments are created, sonically? AK: Well, the one coming up the stairs wasn’t really a wind, more of a low energy, lots of different sounds went into that, to give that kind of, you could say wind, sort of ambience. Its got a texture to it, god I don’t know there were five or six or twelve different sounds used to create that quality.

RJ: And in Lost Highway, there is a scene of a nightmare when Fred and Renee are in bed. There is a colourful mix of sounds, moving from pagan chanting to sounds of a fire, to more “dreamy winds”. The sound of a fire is accompanied by the same image, but to what extend do the other images distort? What we see isn’t really what we get, is it? AK: No its definitely not what you see is what you get, you see what we want you to hear! RJ: I also often notice a sort of ominous presence that is always just out of sight but lurking in the sonic range, what methods do you use to create this sensation? Well with Lynch films it is never a simple answer, there are often a lot of layered sounds. Also by manipulating the tone, you know slowing down, speeding up, Alan (Splet) would use different filters and he used an emulator to change the pitch slightly and really a lot of layers to get that kind of quality. It sort of like a cook you know, you put a little bit of nutmeg and you add some different spices and things until you get the taste that you’re looking for. With sound its really the same thing, just adding these different elements to give that quality, that sound, you just go, aha! And really with David he’d say go out and record… I’m trying to remember what we used in that stairs scene… it was winds and…oh I just don’t remember! Gosh! There were just so many elements that went into that. I know there were some of my FRAP sounds because I know, the sound that contact mic makes; it picks up a lot of low energy sounds, that windy quality, that kind of moody feel to the sound. You know it could have been, a donut machine, then you’d add a little bit of something else, I mean its like putting notes to a music track, adding different changes of pitch until you get a tune, well its kind of the same way with sound effects, you know you add a little boost, you put a bit of, oh anything; the sound of a slowed down ripping paper…with ambiences its about finding different tonal winds, air ducts, you might add animal sounds, a growl that’s been altered to give a certain type of feel, you know there are just so many depending on the mood you want to create!

RJ: In most interviews with Lynch he seems to mention “feeling” and in a different interview, you mentioned mood. I read that you went out with some of your film students in they had to capture a set of romantic sounds and then a set of sinister sounds. How do you find the sound to match the emotion? Is it a constant process of trial and error? AK: Well it’s a lot of experience, for example in this exercise we did a little shot in downtown Gothenburg, Sweden and it was of a woman walking up a stairwell and then a guy coming up and tapping her on the shoulder, she turns around smiles, and in the next shot they walk down the stairs. Then they are walking along a snowy path and there are birds that fly up and there’s a church off in the distance and they fly off towards it. You know for those sounds you can make the traffic sound very light and have a airy quality to it, going through sound libraries to find traffic sounds that sound light; the ding of a tram stopping, keeping the voices light and warm, and then we have birds that have a sort of light cooing quality! It was actually a lot harder than I thought it would be! RJ: So did you find it was easier to find the ominous and sinister sounds than the romantic ones? AK: Oh yes! Its much easier to find the sinister! Just by creating that low end rumble of traffic, you can have an alarm going off, a siren, sirens are fantastic, the low rumbling of a truck starting off has this sinister quality. So you get this ominous feeling about this guy; what’s he up to? Going off to a church; is she going to die? When you hear a church bell; is that a wedding or a funeral? So you can completely change it, just with the exact same scene just by changing the backgrounds, really profoundly! Even footsteps in the snow have sort of a creepy feeling as opposed to a light footstep. A light breeze as opposed to that ghostly, low hollow sort of wind. With music its a piece

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of cake, as soon as the violins come out, you know the feeling! With sound effects its certainly a lot more challenging! And none thinks about it, you know, you’re involved with the story and take it in subliminally but it has a huge impact!