Listening to Things: Foley as ‘Alien Phenomenology’ and Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio

This chapter moves on to consider the practice of Foley artists themselves and their own form of listening, bringing this in line with contemporary non-anthropocentric philosophy. It asks if the Foley artist, in their attention to the interactions between things and their interobjectivity, could be said to be practicing a form of ‘alien phenomenology’ as defined by Ian Bogost (2012). These ideas are then taken back to film itself, to consider Peter Strickland’s Berberian Sound Studio (2012) which purports to make the sound production process visible within the film. However, I argue that sound challenges a logic of phenomenological manifestation and operates outside of the film’s audio-visual economy. In showing the workings of sound, the film gestures towards an exterior sitting at its heart, the Foley performance, that remains invisible. I argue that this performance becomes palpable, as felt or sensed, in the relation of sound to image that the film thematises.