Eavesdropping Theory

I recall with great fondness various childhood instances of playing with cups and string to form a simple listening device. Such moments were full of excitement at discovering not only the possibility of mysteriously extending oneself through the taut cotton of a string, but also of listening in to another’s voice with such proximity. Holding the cup up to my ear to hear the whispers of a friend would trigger a profound sensation that coiled itself inside the ear like a voluptuous purr. The tickling of the ear would send a ripple of chills along the back of my neck, and produce an exquisite relation between myself and my friend. Such pleasures might be said to encapsulate the sensorial intensity of sound, aligning the auditory with a radical tactility, forming the other side to instances of extreme volume or pressurized vibrations that also incite bodily experience. The sonic tickle though elicits such subtle reactions as to make one acutely aware of the body’s potential for erotic sensuality – where listening becomes truly an invasive trespass (rather than an assault onto bodily limits)… The cup and string locate such sonic interventions onto the site of eavesdropping, where the pleasures of listening become that of hearing what is not especially spoken for one’s ears. Trespass here then goes two ways – one, toward a surveying of the audible field around oneself, and the other, the incorporation of what is overheard into the sensorial space of the body. Eavesdropping then is both a form of surveillance, a tactical infringement onto the private, and an erotic experience driven by the quivering of audition. Conscious act and sensorial experience, or social intrusion and psychic obsession. From here, eavesdropping may function as a mechanism for driving forms of sonic action and discourse by positioning the ear between the forces of the social field and that of bodily knowledge, making the tickle a means for production.