Sonic fiction is everywhere: in conversations about vernacular culture,
in music videos, sound art compositions and on record sleeves, in
everyday encounters with sonic experiences and in every single piece of
writing about sound. Where one can find sounds one will also detect bits
of fiction.
In 1998 music critic, DJ and video essayist Kodwo Eshun proposed this
concept in his book "More Brilliant Than The Sun: Adventures in Sonic
Fiction". Originally, he did so in order to explicate the manifold
connections between Afrofuturism and Techno, connecting them to Jazz,
Breakbeat and Electronica. His argument, his narrations and his
explorative language operations however inspired researchers, artists,
and scholars since then. Sonic Fiction became a myth and a mantra, a
keyword and a magical spell.
This book provides a basic introduction to sonic fiction. In six
chapters it explicates the inspirations for and the transformations of
this concept; it explores applications and extrapolations in sound art
and sonic theory, in musicology, epistemology, in critical and political
theory. Sonic fiction is presented in this book as a heuristic for
critique and activism.