The visual has dominated critical theory, but sound offers a different ontology. Jonathan Sterne's audile technique reveals how listening practices are historically and technically constructed—from the stethoscope to the microphone, each medium shapes what can be heard and how. Brandon LaBelle's acoustic territories show that sound structures space and subjectivity in ways vision cannot capture: vibration propagates through walls, around corners, across distances, producing zones of inclusion and exclusion that are felt before they are seen. Flow-channeling, in this register, becomes sonic modulation—not just movement of bodies or data but propagation of frequency, rhythm and resonance. Infrastructure Studies reveals the acoustic materials that shape built space—the concrete that reflects, the insulation that absorbs, the ventilation systems that hum. Science and Technology Studies traces how listening practices are socio-technically constructed, showing how expertise in sound is distributed and contested.
Media Archaeology excavates sound reproduction technologies—phonographs, radios, synthesisers—revealing how each medium conditions what can be heard and archived. Political Ecology connects acoustic environments to metabolic noise, showing how industrial soundscapes shape health and community. Network Science can map sound propagation as relational field, revealing how vibration travels through materials and structures. Decolonial Theory recovers silenced sonic worlds—the musics, languages and soundscapes suppressed by colonial violence. Feminism attends to gendered voices, the frequencies coded as masculine or feminine, authoritative or hysterical. Disability Studies reveals acoustic accessibility, the design of environments for deaf and hard-of-hearing users, and the richness of Deaf sonic cultures. Philosophical Botany asks whether plants perceive vibration, and if so, what acoustic ecologies might mean for vegetal life. What emerges from this convergence is not a new theory of sound but a recognition that certain aesthetic operations—like flow-channeling—function as acoustic interventions. This capacity to attend to vibration as infrastructural, which might be termed socioplastics, names the work of aesthetic forms that tune into the sonic conditions of collective life.
Lloveras, A. (2026) Socioplastics. https://antolloveras.blogspot.com
510-systemic-lock https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18682555 509-postdigital-taxidermy https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18682480 508-topolexical-sovereignty https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18682343 507-citational-commitment https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18475136 506-recursive-autophagia https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18681761 505-proteolytic-transmutation https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18681278 504-stratum-authoring https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18680935 503-semantic-hardening https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18680418 502-cameltag https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18680031 501-flow-channeling https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18678959
FAMILY
Infrastructure Studies, Ontology, Cybernetics, Systems Theory, Science and Technology Studies, Critical Urban Studies, Posthumanism, Sovereignty Studies, Semiotics, Media Archaeology, Complexity Theory, Spatial Justice, Political Ecology, Feminism and Gender Theory, Decolonial Theory, Anthropocene Studies, Relational Aesthetics, Commons Theory, Mobility Studies, Technological Critique, Software Studies, Platform Studies, Environmental Psychology, Phenomenology, Place Theory, Landscape Theory, Urban Ecology, Multispecies Studies, New Materialism, Speculative Realism, Actor-Network Theory, Biopolitics, Postcolonial Theory, Critical Aesthetics, Contemporary Art Theory, Social Practice Art, Spatial Politics, Urban Anthropology, Informality Studies, Urban Marginality, Digital Capitalism, Surveillance Studies, Smart City Theory, Sound Studies, Visual Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Humanistic Geography, Hybrid Geographies, Philosophical Botany, Neuroaesthetics, Perception Theory, Disability Studies, Intersectionality Theory, Utopian Theory, Postmodern Theory, Radical Pedagogy, Globalization Theory, Geopolitics, Marxist Theory, Post-Marxism, Value Theory, Evolutionary Economics, Game Theory, Network Science, Scaling Theory, Complex Systems, Historical Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, Interaction Design, Information Architecture, Interface Theory, Protocol Theory, Maintenance Studies, Critical Infrastructure Theory, Southern Epistemologies, Indigenous Theory, Territorial Feminism, Latin American Political Ecology, Subaltern Studies, Accelerationism, Materialist Philosophy, Post-Operaismo, Immaterialism, Object-Oriented Ontology, Digital Political Economy, Law and Technology, Algorithmic Culture, Urban Media Studies, Spatial Art Theory, Architectural Criticism, Urban Planning Theory, Sustainable Urbanism, Right to the City Theory, Environmental Humanities, Political Theology, Governmentality Studies, Logistics Studies, Data Studies, Institutional Theory.