Noise can be shocking, dangerous, and abject. Noise can also be banal, serendipitous, and imperceptible. Noise can be good and bad; both and neither.

In this talk, Marie Thompson will discuss the relationship between noise and affect, taking into account a broad spectrum of sound and vibration – from the ignored to the extraordinary. With this in mind, she will argue for an alternative understanding of noise music that moves away from the already well-rehearsed tropes of failure, contradiction, and transgression, instead emphasising noise’s productive, transformative potential.