Coloring-Pencil Sound

Imagine that you are in a quiet library. Two people behind you start whispering, others are gently typing on keyboards, and someone starts quietly eating an apple. You look up and watch someone delicately turn the pages of a book, carefully scratching some notes with a newly sharpened pencil. For many, these might be frustrating and irritating distractions in a supposedly quiet environment. But for others, these sights and sounds would trigger a feeling known as Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR)—a warm, tingling, and pleasant sensation starting at the crown of the head and spreading down the body. (Poerio et al., 2018, p. 1)

ASMR and frisson[1] are examples of phenomena variously discussed as eliciting sensations of pleasure, elevation of heart rate, brain orgasms, chills, through different forms of sound stimuli (Poerio, 2018). In this art class, there are twelve children in the classroom and two more sitting outside working. Just as they are about to start class, becoming-teacher steps into a transient silence[2] which is approached with the words “Some have already gotten into a head start, how nice!”(T, p. 4). Without further ado, children are let go to continue the work they have already begun. The ensuing voicelessness becomes the condition for an encounter with other sounds, such as sandal swooshing and coloring-pencil sound. These are examples of sounds that some studies describe have the potential to create ‘a warm, tingling, and pleasant sensation’ in bodies. 

This mosaic asks ‘how encounters with coloring-pencil sound unfold and with what effects’? This inquiry has no desire to follow in the footsteps of the kind of studies that examine the physiology and measurements connected to ASMR, nor does it make any claims on whether bodies do in fact feel sensations of pleasure. However, the surge in interest into the various ways in which sound participates in stress reduction, wellbeing and the like, is notable, and there are even social media accounts that work exclusively with sound and sight affect. For bodies that find stress relief in the sound of coloring-pencil, welcome to this art class and to color event. Whilst reading this, step into the middle of a coloring event to experience forty-three minutes of coloring-pencil sound[3] (go to the top right corner of this view and press the speaker icon).

Encounters with Coloring-Pencil Sound

No one speaks. Children are coloring. Scha-scha-scha, scha-scha-scha, scha-scha-scha-scha. Becoming-teacher is meandering between desks. Swosh. Swosh. Swosh. Coloring sound changes. Skuiiiiich-skuiiich-skuiiich. Becoming-teacher goes to a table in the front of the classroom, fetches a coloring pencil, walks over to the skuiiich-maker and hands them a new pencil. (T, p. 4) 

Sound is integral to the non/human relational architecting of (school) life. Sound environments spring from the unfolding relations between human bodies, material objects and architecture. Macken describes the continuous flow of input through ears by explaining that “[w]hile our eyes remain fixed on a relatively small view (and with the option of closing them) our ears are at the mercy of a 360° amphitheater of experience, with the sign over the door saying “we never close” (2014). Considering its inescapability in an institutional context made mandatory, sound thus becomes an ethico-political dimension of school life (SFS, 2010:800).  

The inescapability of sound bids the question of how sounds work during an art class, considering that Gershon in an article about embodied knowledge proposes that “sounds are educational systems” (Gershon, 2011, p. 66). Different assemblages with different sounds will therefore explore different institutional set ups, or what Gershon in speaking from a sociocultural paradigm explores as school’s ‘sound curriculum’ (Gershon, 2017). So, what sound curriculum does this art class co-construct and how does coloring-pencil sound work? After all, ‘sound as affect’ explains that “[t]he propagation of sonic affects through space also relies on bodies as active participants” (Gallagher, 2016, p. 47), which the mosaic Park of Silence also illustrates. In what follows, we will look at how ‘sound as affect’ works.

Sound as Affect

Phenomenological approaches and man’s self-reported experience of sound lie outside the scope of this inquiry, whereas the effect of sonic affect is what is of interest. This is explained by Gallagher, who perceives sound through the conceptual filter of ‘affect’ in order “to understand sound as a force that physically moves bodies of many different kinds” (2016, p. 47). In thinking ‘sound as affect’, Gallagher (2016) returns to the question about the relation between sound and the falling-tree-in-the-woods image and settles that ‘yes’- sound exists beyond human perception of it. Thus, sound does not necessitate cochlear hearing to be encountered or felt, nor for the human body to be present to exist (even if the latter is a given in the explored art class setting). As the falling tree example points out, non-/human bodies producing sound can thus affect bodies through vibrations capable of travelling and touching at a distance.

Sound is an actualization of difference itself that unfolds through the repetition of ‘vibrational movement’ (Gallagher, 2016). Soundwaves touching and bouncing off all bodies in the shared space have even the subtle sounds of coloring-pencil travel as touch at a distance. Therefore, exploring an assemblage as producing sound says something about the nurture of the fragile voicelessness that safeguards the swoosh of sandals and coloring-pencil sound; because sound is, as already mentioned, also ethico-political insofar that it is “in the interest of the collectively unfolding event” ([italics in original] Massumi, 2015, p. 97), produced and sustained by multiple and active bodies. So,

[i]f the presence or absence of certain sounds can tell biologists about the health of wetlands, what might be learned through similar attention to institutional interactions in places such as schools, hospitals, or governmental buildings? How healthy is an almost silent classroom or waiting room in a hospital? (Daza & Gershon, 2015, p. 641)

What might be ‘learned through attention to the institutional interactions’ that produce the sounds in an art class? To explore this, we will now look at coloring-pencil sound as ‘event’, but   to do so also requires a look at two heterogenous yet complementary understandings or time.

The Time of Chronos and the Time of Aeon

Time can be conceptualized as both clock time, the Time of Chronos, and as non-divisible time, the Time of Aeon (Deleuze & Guattari, ([1980]1987). Chronos and Aeon are two overlapping aspects of time, but they are not interchangeable, nor is one fruitful without the other:

Because Aion[4] occupies a temporal level that is separate from the present, Aion and chronos cannot be reduced to one another. Their relationship is paradoxical in that they are able to interact but have no general laws (e.g., causal laws) that govern them both. Yet each time would be incomplete without the other. (Hein, 2013, p. 495)

Chronos and Aeon therefore help point at different temporal aspects in situations where “[e]very act”, says Willams, “takes place according to [these] two readings of time” (2011, p. 157). Now, an investigation of how these different yet complementary conceptualizations of time help explore the unfolding present and the encounters with coloring-pencil sound in an art class.

Five Minutes of Coloring

In a voicelessness filled with coloring-pencil sound, becoming-teacher can be seen joining a child in coloring:

Becoming-teacher stands next to the child, on the right-hand side. Takes a coloring pencil. Fills a white space with color. Cocks the head to the right, looks at the drawing. Continues coloring. Two bodies close to one another, saying nothing. Coloring. (T, p. 4)

Becoming-teacher is coloring. Becoming-teacher stays coloring next to the child for five minutes, or 300 seconds. Speaking of the duration in terms of minutes or seconds is a conceptualization where time is made divisible, chronological, and thus in keeping with the timeof chronos. Coloring is, in this temporal analysis, made sequential, a linear succession where becoming-teacher has stopped doing something else in order to color, and then ends coloring to do something new. The time of chronos thus speaks of “the time of measure that situates things and persons, develops a form, and determines a subject”, in a footnote described as “present-being” (Deleuze & Guattari, [1980]1987, p. 262, 541).

To Color

Proposing the same situation as a ‘to color’-event, on the other hand, suggests a fluid understanding of time in accordance with the time of Aeon. ‘To color’ as event conceptualizes the activity as an event that, in the words of Deleuze and Guattari, is“an already-there that is at the same time not-yet-here, a simultaneous too-late and too-early, a something that is both going to happen and has just happened” ([1980]1987, p. 262). ‘To color’ has its own speed that bifurcates from lesson time and tempo. ‘To color’ speaks of “the infinitive-becoming” (Deleuze & Guattari, [1980]1987, p. 541) where becoming-teacher joins an already begun coloring-event which outlasts clock time and continues after becoming-teacher leaves the child – sustained through the sound of coloring-pencil.

In the slow walk between desks becoming-teacher thus enters in the middle of a ‘to color’: because “[a]n event is neither a beginning nor an end point, but rather always ‘in the middle’”, Stagoll explains (in Parr (Ed.), 2010, p. 91). Voicelessness entails relational architecting where sharing materials becomes a way to interact without the use of words. Immersed in the filling one of the white patches on the shared coloring page, five minutes pass during which becoming-teacher only cocks a head to shift perspective. Becoming-teacher, child, pencil, and coloring page, are enfolded in a ‘to color’(-event).

‘To color’ is accordingly always open to be continued. Deleuze and Guattari say that 

the verb in the infinitive [here: to color] is in no way indeterminate with respect to time; it expresses the floating, nonpulsed time proper to Aeon, in other words, the time of the pure event or of becoming, which articulates relative speeds and slownesses independently of the chronometric or chronological values that time assumes in the other modes. (Deleuze & Guattari, [1980]1987, p. 263)

‘To color’ layers relative speeds and slownesses becoming-teacher can enter. In fact, becoming-teacher enters’ in the middle’ of different and layered events, continuously, as opposed to the linear time of chronos where one thing is exchanged for another in a sequential fashion.

Events

The experience of reality is never only dependent on already existing structures. Instead, experience involves a form of sense-making in medias res through ‘eventalizing’, such as constructing an assignment in the form of a ‘to color’-event. In the unfolding present of an art class, fourteen bodies participate in the making of a ‘to color’-event.  To color itself becomes ontologically expanded through this “re-eventalization” (Fraser, 2006, p. 130). “Events are produced in a chaos, in a chaotic multiplicity, but only under the condition that a sort of screen intervenes”, says Deleuze ([1988] 1993, p. 76). Understanding coloring as an event thus imparts an ‘intervening screen’ where ‘to color’ is the making of sense(-events), a particular way of drawing together bodies and activities into named clusters in space-times referred to as school.

Making sense of an activity as ‘five minutes coloring’ or ‘to color’, thus offers different perspectives on the activity – one sequential and linear, the other fluid and overlapping. Importantly, these different understandings of time are not merely philosophical, nor is one better than the other. Instead, all of life consists of layered and conflicting durations, why questions about time involve making ethical deliberations. From this perspective, Williams translates Deleuze’s theory of time(s) into two ethical questions to ask oneself in everyday life: “[h]ow have you included others in your present” […] and [w]hom have you excluded?” ([italics in original] Williams, 2011, p. 157). Translated into the context of this art class: how have you included others whilst coloring and whom have you excluded?

The point of conceptualizing ‘to color’ as an event, is that it morphs the linearity of the unfolding present and how the sound of coloring pencil sustains the shared event. Thus, the situation concerns how all fourteen bodies are included in layered and multiple events. So, when everybody is working and no one asks for help, becoming-teacher can enter a second event. Becoming-teacher now enters a ‘to note and read’-event that amalgamates with the collectivity of ‘to color’, held together through the sound of coloring-pencil. Overtaken by chronological thinking I make sure to clock everything. Becoming-teacher does no such thing. I therefore know that the ‘to note and read’-event takes four minutes, i.e.  240 seconds. I imagine becoming-teacher simply enters ‘in the middle’ of a ‘to note and read’-event. The ‘to note and read’-event entails sitting on the chair, reading in a folder, making necessary notes – all whilst simultaneously participating in ‘to color’. 

Sound Events

Sound is felt and lived, material, a “spatio-temporal event” (Revill[5], 2016, p. 243) that situates the body in space and time. This is an understanding of sound that anchors it to the time of chronos where sounds occur in a particular place at a particular moment. However, I suggest that the sound of coloring in a ‘to color’ event also constructs a sonic fingerprint where sound opens the confinements of spatiality and time[6]. Sound affects bodies, touches at a distance and in so doing forms sonic events that exceed place, create space and, I propose, make time itself fluid. In what follows, I will look at how the act of coloring surpasses spatiality, before turning to the issue of how ‘to color’ works on tempos.  

Sound and Space

In the art class, sound in a manner liquidizes physical space; “[a]uditory space has no point of favored focus. It’s a sphere without fixed boundaries, space made by the thing itself, not space containing the thing” (Carpenter & McLuhan, 1973, p. 67). A to ‘color event’, maintained through the sound of coloring-pencil and sandal swoosh, subsists thanks to voicelessness and the power of sound to touch at a distance. The classroom transcends beyond its material boundaries through sounds that carry into the corridor and the two children working there.

In the corridor, a thundering food cart is pushed through the narrow space, centimeters behind the backs of children and becoming-teacher. No one flinches or even seems to notice the intrusive sound of food-cart ruckus (go to sound file to experience the ruckus of a food-cart from afar (16 min.), or behind one’s back (24 min.)). Even though the intrusive sound encourages bodies to break voicelessness by complaining, no one says a word. Instead, through indifference the trio actualizes voicelessness accompanied only by the faint sound of coloring-pencils from the classroom. This space too becomes part of the ‘to color’ event.

However, we should also consider how there is a process of inclusion/exclusion at work in the corridor. Whilst the commotion of the food cart has me turn my head away to shield my ears from the harsh metallic sound of wheels on floor, the same sound is for this art class assemblage the anticipated sound that alludes to lunchtime. So, the temporal exclusion Williams (2011) is asking us to pay attention to, seems to have a sonic counterpart that captures the processes of inclusion and exclusion going on in the art class assemblage. Exclusion through sound is actualized by the way my body is affected by food-cart sound, and the way becoming-teacher repeatedly goes to close a door at the end of the corridor to keep away the sound of voices from the common area. Although I may be aurally excluded from the sonic world of the art class assemblage, I am still included in a ‘to color’ event.

Sound and Time

During voicelessness, there is also something important happening in the relation between sound affect and time, more precisely regarding matters of tempo and duration. How sounds affect a body’s tempo and sense of time, can be seen in becoming-teacher and a child wearing headphones: A notation from art class states that “[o]ne child is miming lyrics silently whilst coloring in synchronization with the music” (T, p. 4). Song-sound envelopes the child, and shifts in tempo become detectable in the child’s rhythmic coloring. A disassociation through tempo emerges when the slow coloring of voicelessness is abandoned in favor of the rhythmic scratching to an up-tempo song.

The duration of the song also affects the body. When art class is coming to an end, the song in the child’s headphones is not. The duration of the song overcodes the duration of the lesson. The child’s sense of time is unsettled, despite there being two large timers on a projected screen in front of the child. ‘Art class time’ becomes layered by ‘song time’ and the child needs the assistance of a classmate before noticing that the lesson is over.  

Not only does music affect bodies, but voicelessness also affects tempo and duration. Becoming-teacher’s walking pace varies during the day with a notable slowing down that coincides with voicelessness. Time spent on task, meanwhile, seems to increase – as if there was more time in voicelessness. An important effect of slow walking is that the soft swoosh of sandals never risks overpowering the sound of coloring pencil. Another effect of slow walking is that it gives time to see and listen to what the children are doing (go to mosaic Park of Silence).   

But slowness ought not be taken as axiomatic during art class. Rather, time seems to be chasing bodies due to the two large timers projected on a screen. A large digital clock counts down seconds steadily in a linear fashion, 59, 58, 57, 56, 55, 54, 53, 52, 51, 50, 49, 48… An hourglass, meanwhile, has sand pouring at a steady pace. Yet, there appears to be no stress. Rather, the pace of becoming-teacher swooshing gives a viscid impression, as if the body was wading through water with infinite time to move through stillness. Class pulse moves equally slowly by throbbing in synchronization with a voicelessness lag. A pulse enveloped by the soothing sound of coloring-pencils. 

Inclusion through Sound 

So, ‘how do we include others in our present and whom we exclude’? I propose that coloring-pencil sound enables keeping the ‘to color’-event (Aeon) open so that all fourteen bodies are included in a shared present for forty-three minutes (chronos) in the classroom and beyond. When not having to pay attention to words uttered by humans, sound becomes a well of information that offers an embodied sense of what is going on during art class; swooshing sandals provides information about the location of becoming-teacher, whilst the sound of coloring pencils provides information about the whereabouts of other bodies and what they are doing.  

Aural information is involuntary (Macken, 2014) and need not always be consciously attended to. Yet it may still provide data about the unfolding present. Put another way, hearing sounds in contrast to listening to the message of voices, requires different affective capacities where language-ing adds to the powers of sound. As Gallagher proposes, “the ability of sound to exercise power^[[7]] owes much to its affective potency, particularly when this operates in conjunction with conscious registers of sonic meaning” (2016, p. 47). In voicelessness, meanwhile, to color offers bodies the freedom to move beyond sonic homogeneity (become headphone-children), leave the physical place (go to the corridor), engage in layered activities (to note and read) in keeping with singular durations and tempos (song duration and tempo), and still be included in the present through the sound of coloring-pencil.

Or perhaps are sounds that thrive in voicelessness, such as coloring-pencil and sandal swooshing, examples of sounds that are “accompanied by feelings of calm and relaxation” (Poerio, 2018, p. 1)? In that case, the encounter with the sound of coloring-pencil could be said to offer a sound curriculum of inclusiveness. Or at least so it seems until art class is over, and the second art class begins. Upon entering this second classroom, we come to suspect that the voicelessness and the coloring-pencil sound might also be an effect of there being seven children seated on this side of the wall (see mosaic When Outside Becomes Inside: Becoming-teacher and the Event ‘to Classroom’).     

References

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Daza, S., & Gershon, W. S. (2015). Beyond ocular inquiry: Sound, silence, and sonification. Qualitative Inquiry, 21(7), 639-644.

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Fraser, M. (2006). Event. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(2-3), 129-132.

Gallagher, M. (2016). Sound as affect: Difference, power and spatiality. Emotion, Space and Society, 20, 42-48.

Gershon, W. S. (2011). Embodied knowledge: Sounds as educational systems. JCT (Online), 27(2), 66.

Gershon, W. S. (2017). Sound curriculum: Sonic studies in educational theory, method, & practice. Taylor & Francis.

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Mahady, A., Takac, M., & De Foe, A. (2023). What is autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR)? A narrative review and comparative analysis of related phenomena. Consciousness and Cognition, 109, 103477.

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Parr, A. (Ed.). (2010). Deleuze Dictionary (Rev. Ed.) Edinburgh University Press.

Poerio, G. L., Blakey, E., Hostler, T. J., & Veltri, T. (2018). More than a feeling: Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is characterized by reliable changes in affect and physiology. PloS one, 13(6), e0196645.

Revill, G. (2016). How is space made in sound? Spatial mediation, critical phenomenology and the political agency of sound. Progress in human geography, 40(2), 240-256.

SFS (Svensk författningssamling) [Swedish Code of Statutes] 2010:800. Skollag. [The Education Act]. Stockholm: Utbildningsdepartementet.

Williams, J. (2011). Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of time: a critical introduction and guide. Edinburgh University Press.