Heys, T., 2019.

Sound Pressure: How Speaker Systems Influence, Manipulate and Torture

Sound Pressure is a 10-year trans-disciplinary and trans-historical investigation into civilian and battlefield contexts in which speaker-systems were utilised by military-industrial and military-entertainment complexes to apply pressure to social groups and individuals. Charting an evolution from 1922 (introduction of wired radio into U.S. factories to influence productivity), it documents a lineage of sound-system deployment aimed at manipulation (e.g. Waco Siege) and torture (Guantánamo Bay, 2003-2009). Importantly, Sound Pressure reveals how sonic culture is being assimilated by military organisations and utilised against civilians. Building on knowledge and public debate formulated by Steve Gooman's Sonic Warfare (MIT Press, 2012) Sound Pressure extends it by composing a coherent mapping of sound-system weaponisation for the first time. The qualitative and quantititave research methods included indepth interviews with sound-system torture witnesses, comparative analysis, and archival investigations in Europe and North America. Consequently, this pioneering book has the potential to establish new fields of military sound studies and to be a core academic text for sonic theory, sonic futures, and cultural studies' courses. Sound Pressure identifies the epistemic shift in sound-system functionality when covert directional ultrasound technologies emerge. Such liminal technologies work at the edge of perception, exemplified in this research through an analysis of the 2017's ultrasonic/infrasonic attacks aimed at the US Embassy in Havana. Within the current field of sonic cultures, a crucial gap concerning ultrasound/infrasound was exposed by the lack analysis on the Cuban attacks; an urgent problem addressed by this monograph. This research influenced international policy through my involvement with a Cuban government taskforce (34 multidisciplinary/intersectoral specialists from universities, research institutes, hospitals), which attempted to solve the mystery of the attacks that have had a detrimental effect on Cuba's economy. The research was further disseminated trhough regular interviews with television and print media outlets such as BBC, The Lancet and New Scientist and lectures at universities, museums, and galleries.