Spectral technologies, sonic motility, and the paranormal in Chile

Abstract

In this article I look at Chilean paranormal investigators in the capital—Santiago—and their apparatuses. I argue that these recording devices appear somehow as “vibrant” things, but they work in conjunction with others creating articulate living worlds. The first argument is that these articulations are made salient through sonic atmospheres—universes of sound that envelope a particular temporal moment, and that escape any single person’s volition or control. These atmospheres create sonic reverberations, in effect, momentary cosmologies, that bend, curve, and extend into the lives of the investigators that engage with them. My second argument is that these sonic atmospheres create worlds that are not taken for granted but subject to controversy, varying interpretations and sometimes, stabilizing concordances, and that need to be “transduced”.