acousmatic
- adjective
- /əˈkuːzmætɪk/
- Specialized
- The film's use of acousmatic sound added tension by leaving the audience unaware of the source of the ominous noises.
- acousmatic sound
Examples
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To descend into the Earth is to abandon the whole optic schema of knowing, to rely instead on echolocation, say, in all its acousmatic eeriness.
Academic text (2016) -
Here I follow Kane, who focuses not on the type of sound—musical or otherwise—but on the "acousmatic situation," the orientation of the subject to the sound (225).
Academic text (2016) -
In the midst of this experience of absorbed listening to acousmatic sound, the speaker suddenly voices a desire for death.
Academic text (2016) -
Kane's book provides a rich history of the nineteenth-century interest in acousmatic sound broadly relevant to my nineteenth-century poetic examples.
Academic text (2016) -
In the art installation, the acousmatic sound created an immersive experience, allowing visitors to engage with the audio without visual distractions.
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During the performance, the acousmatic elements immersed the audience in a world of sound, highlighting the power of audio to evoke emotion without visuals.
Surface Forms
Morphology
acousmatic = acousma + tic
A specialist borrowing built from non-productive Greek/French combining forms; the components are not familiar productive English morphemes, so a B1 learner cannot derive the meaning from them.
Etymology
Acousmatic comes from the Greek root akouein, meaning 'to hear', and from a story of Pythagoras' students who listened from behind a curtain. So acousmatic describes sounds you hear when you cannot see where they come from.
