Sounds of Silence: Conducting Technology and Nature

Early technological innovations linked to recording and communication, such as the radio and telephone, inaugurated research into the perception and cognition of vibrational continua connecting sound to infrasound, and other inaudible frequencies.1 These inventions also encouraged the belief that humans could access anomalous zones of transmission between the domains of human and non-human, of the living and the dead.2 The case of Bengali physicist Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937), who researched the physical behaviour of particles and pioneered the use of semiconductor junctions to detect and channel radio signals, is illustrative here. Credited with pioneering discoveries in microwave and wireless telecommunications, Bose’s research would contribute to the future development of satellite communication.3 The invisible and mysterious behaviour of microwave particles fascinated him most; specifically, the secret power of waves to elude (colonial) perception: to ‘pass brick walls, buildings’ and ‘transmit messages […] without the mediation of wires’.