Audiovisual Short-Circuit: Sound, Image, and Time from Epstein to the Digital Era

Online Journal Title: ElectroAcoustics Magazine

Print Series Destination: Arts & Technologies (Annual Print Selection)

Classification / Category: 2026 Official Series · Sound Research / Film Thery & Audio-Visual

Article Identifier: Art. 2026.07.en

Publishing Model: Continuous Digital Publication · Peer-Review Selected for Print

Indexing & Registrations

ISSN (Online): Application in Progress

ISBN (Print): Reserved for Arts & Technologies 2027

DOI: Pre-assigned (eam.2026.07.en)

Publication Date: August 25, 2026

At the threshold of the «Para-Acousmatic», the visible presence of the performing body does not dissolve reduced listening, but exasperates it: sound fixed on a medium stands as the true immanent text of vision.

Audiovisual Short-Circuit: Sound, Image, and Time from Epstein to the Digital Era

Structure and Core Themes

• Part I: Historical Framework and The Echoes of Usher

  Documents the archival release currently in production for the 2026 Series (RDM Records) of the 2010 live performance at the Milan Conservatory led by Riccardo Sinigaglia. It preserves the historical-artistic legacy of Francesco Bossi (Arp Odyssey) and outlines the ensemble's collective «unity in diversity» approach to real-time live scoring.

• Part II: Theoretical-Epistemological Bridge and The «Para-Acousmatic»

  Integrates frameworks drawn from Romina Daniele’s Voce Sola (Epstein, Benjamin, Pasolini, Deleuze, Chion, Wishart). It introduces the «para-acousmatic threshold» — defining a condition in which visible performance triggers reduced listening through high acoustic autonomy — and critiques neopositivist spectrographic reductionism.

• Part III: Audio-Vision in La Chute de la Maison Usher (Historical Essay)

  Presents the revised 2010 analysis of the live performance alongside Epstein’s film, detailing specific performative mechanics: close miking, physical gestural control, and the «voice-subject» in key scenes.

• Critical Apparatus

  Includes figure descriptions and a comprehensive four-part bibliography covering electroacoustic theory, film theory, primary philosophical and archival sources.

Fig. 1. Francesco Bossi, In tribute and memory of the musician and composer, whose sonic research and artistic presence constitute the pulsing engine of the Ensemble’s lineup for the 2010 live scoring of Usher. (Photo courtesy of the Bossi Estate).

PART I. The Echoes of Usher: Historical Framework

The archival publication of The Echoes of Usher (currently in production for the 2026 Series, RDM Records) [1], drawn from the historic performance held on July 17, 2010, at the Milan Conservatory [2], marks a fundamental milestone in the convergence between the historic Milanese avant-garde and contemporary sonic research unfolding on a transatlantic scale. Dedicated to the memory of Francesco Bossi — whose intervention on the Arp Odyssey represents the cornerstone of the work —, the project embodies his radical vision of music as «pure sound». This conception not only marks the epochal transition from the act of «composing with notes» to «composing with sounds», but even elevates the title of the work to pure electroacoustic matter, connecting directly to the transdisciplinary vision of this journal’s Manifesto [3], thereby allowing the ensemble to interact with Jean Epstein’s cinematic masterpiece (La Chute de la Maison Usher, 1928) on this side of a mere commentary interpretation, through a rigorous trans-structural and electro-aesthesic lens.

Under the guidance and live direction of Riccardo Sinigaglia, the ensemble's coordination is structured around an ethics of collective resonance. The Sinigaglian principle of «unity in diversity» transformed the performance into a space of «reciprocal enrichment»: an architecture in which individual voices — from Danilo Zaffaroni’s bassoon to Omar Dodaro’s piano, extending to the gestural sensing of Danio Catanuto’s Wii controller and the synthetic textures of Bossi and Sinigaglia — converge without any single voice dominating the others [4]. This dynamic finds a perfect epistemological synthesis in the theoretical and performative work of Romina Daniele and her Voce Sola project [5], where the voice is understood not as a subjective withdrawal or lyrical outburst, but as the essential and most proper («own-most») property, destined for sharing, scientific inquiry, and the collective resonance that embodies «sound-thought» (pensiero-suono). In The Echoes of Usher, the filmic dimension in relation to live music ceases to be a passive backdrop and becomes the place of a shared epistemic investigation [6].

Bossi's intervention with the Arp Odyssey assumes an essential and foundational structural function: his presence is not limited to a simple timbral counterpoint, but constitutes the true supporting axis of the entire work. The acoustic mass generated by Bossi manifests as an imposing noise-sound trajectory — a magmatic hurricane that runs transversely through the master tracks, occupying a frequency diagram of extraordinary substance. This monolithic and solid material confers an immovable and evocative acoustic architecture upon the work as a whole; its electroacoustic sense possesses meteoric volume and a visceral power that, in the forthcoming audiophile release, redefines the boundaries of the audiovisual short-circuit and imposes sound as an originary physical and structural entity.

Framed within this tableau of sensory tensions is the incisive presence and sensitivity of the ensemble's other protagonists, beginning with Danilo Zaffaroni's bassoon. The bassoon traverses genres and sound matter with a disarming naturalness: incisive attacks, breath intakes, the jazzistic drive innervated into vanguard classical rhythmics, the mixed and suspended andante, together with dynamic ascents and descents in dialogue with the piano, generate a full-bodied substance and a timbre with an idiosyncratic profile, which juxtaposes with unprecedented efficacy against the material and resonant rendering of the piano.

Played by Omar Dodaro with structural ductility and timbral care — at times with an acute and histrionic touch, at times with impeccable formal rigor —, in certain passages the piano escapes all expectation: one nearly loses consciousness that the instrument can produce such humors, such resonances, and melodies of such vast scope. Listening to this multidimensional piano means ideally retracing the history of music, finding oneself directly upon the steep and open hill of its infinite expressive possibilities.

To this trans-dynamic (dis)equilibrium is joined the gestural sensorics of Danio Catanuto's Wiimote controller. The device — at times pure noise-matter, at times the simulation of a stringed instrument — brings sound to the ensemble with a stylistic verve that astonishes for its capacity to integrate multidirectionally across musical categories and styles. Side by side with traditional instruments with fluid lucidity, the controller possesses the infinitesimal advantage of being able to convert any sound and virtual intention into a plastic, reactive gesture.

At the foundation and synthesis of this architecture, Riccardo Sinigaglia reveals himself as the visionary soul capable of leading the ensemble's multiplicity back to unity, embodying that plural physiognomy that transforms the organic whole into «a single multitude» [7]. His structural and electronic contribution materializes in a multilevel direction and compositeness of sound — that of a true electroacoustic orchestra conductor —, a title that confers further continuity upon the rigorous path matured over more than thirty years of compositional and discographic research.

It is precisely within this solid horizon of research that his specific conception of the relationship between sound and image is grafted. As emerges from the press coverage and period statements analyzed by the present writer [8], Riccardo Sinigaglia’s vision of film scoring does not treat the synthetic and electronic apparatus as a mere decorative filter, atmospheric background, or illustrative commentary. The electroacoustic apparatus is not reduced to a tool for accessory effects, but is configured as the primary generative space through which sonic matter is brought forth in its concrete immediacy.

This perspective thus operates on this side of a visual translation of narrative junctures based on pleonastic redundancies or illustrative synchronies. The act of live scoring is grounded in a rigorous, collective improvisation executed in real time, capable of bringing to light the internal resonances, hidden structures, and the unconscious of the image. Sound acts as an apparatus of dialectical acoustic unveiling: the synthetic machine and the camera meet on a plane of equal ontological dignity, where real-time sound generation dialogues directly with the visual matter without obsolete notational or descriptive subordinations [9]. Live electronics represents a theoretical and practical turning point in which the traditional hierarchy between composer and performer is definitively overcome. In the activity of the electroacoustic ensemble led by Sinigaglia, this paradigm shift finds concrete realization: improvisation does not configure itself as mere arbitrariness, but as a form of shared, «participatory composition»: the cinematic image provides the structural coordinates upon which the musicians dialogue in real time through acoustic and synthetic instruments, alongside digital processing [10].

Claiming the opening of a path toward an essential and necessary inquiry into the «electroacoustic imperative» means opening oneself to a necessary transdisciplinarity and an epistemology of perception. This theoretical nexus operates on this side of the worn-out «sound yes / score no» dualism — a thoroughly tested and now obsolete academic debate; it does not choose one ‘genre’, theory, or practice over another, but sets itself on the path of direct study and understanding of the boundless scope with which new technologies, and nothing prior to them, have enriched or substantiated the most ancient and originative inquiry into the existentive, corporeal, and epistemic totality of the human being [11]. From the perspective of the «electroacoustic imperative», the technological apparatus becomes the transdisciplinary place in which the physics of sound, the philosophy of language, audio-visual perception, and the physical-psychic act of intellectual and sonic emission merge their respective instances without disciplinary reductionisms [12].

The radical difference between the prevailing practice in contemporary/classical music and the electroacoustic operation conducted in The Echoes of Usher is thus explicitly articulated without compromise. When sound is reduced to «musical commentary» or transparent illustrative accompaniment, a pleonastic interpretive grid is bound to «explain» or domesticate the scene, whether it utilizes prescriptive score notation or technology-driven music. On the other hand, real-time recording and processing operate on this side of these demands, of notational convention or «commentary»: the electroacoustic apparatus and the cinematic apparatus confront each other as two autonomous and coextensive material entities. The fixation and processing of sound do not create a symbolic translation, but establish a direct dialectic between sonic matter and filmic matter [13].

Notes to Part I

[1] RDM Records Editorial Team. (2026). New Release: The Echoes Of Usher [News/Official Release]. Milan-Miami: RDM Records. https://rdmrecords.com/it/nuova-uscita-the-echoes-of-usher

[2] Riccardo Sinigaglia Ensemble feat. Romina Daniele, Omar Dodaro, Danio Catanuto, Danilo Zaffaroni, & Francesco Bossi. (2026). The Echoes of Usher [Archival Live Recording, Milan Conservatory, July 17, 2010]. Milan-Miami: RDM Records.

[3] RDM Records Editorial Team, & ElectroAcoustics Board. (2026). Inquiry into Sound and Technologies. Arts & Technologies Manifesto. ElectroAcoustics Magazine, Series 2026, Art. 2026.01.it. DOI: eam.2026.01.it. https://rdmrecords.com/it/arts-and-technologies

[4] RDM Records Editorial Team. (2026). New Release: The Echoes Of Usher, cit.

[5] Daniele, R. (forthcoming). Voce Sola. Essay Around The Vocal Discourse. Milan-Miami: RDM Records (with particular reference to Ch. II: The Place of Technologies in Music).

[6] RDM Records Editorial Team. (2026). New Release: The Echoes Of Usher, cit.

[7] The reference is to the famous conceptual construct and title of Fernando Pessoa's collection, Uma Só Multidão (A Single Multitude; Italian ed., Una sola moltitudine, ed. A. Tabucchi, Adelphi, 1979). In the context of this study, the formula is deployed heuristically to define the directorial and electronic agency of Riccardo Sinigaglia: a apparatus of synthesis capable of coordinating the distinct timbral and gestural identities of the ensemble (the 'multiplicity') into a singular, coherent listening trajectory (the 'unity').

[8] Daniele, R. (forthcoming). The Place of Technologies in Music, in Ead., Voce Sola, cit.

[9] Ibidem.

[10] Regarding the dissolution of historical boundaries between composer and performer and the transformation of the ordering principles of Western music in shared improvisation, see: Grout, D. J. (1960). A History of Western Music. New York: W. W. Norton & Company; Sinigaglia, R. (2011). Statement on Live Scoring and Electroacoustic Improvisation, in D. Vanotti (Ed.), s.t., article for the Asilo Bianco association on the occasion of the live scoring of the film I Mille (A. Degli Abbati, 1912).

[11] Daniele, R. (forthcoming). The Place of Technologies in Music, in Ead., Voce Sola, cit.

[12] RDM Records Editorial Team, & ElectroAcoustics Board. (2026). Inquiry into Sound and Technologies. Arts & Technologies Manifesto, cit.

[13] Daniele, R. (forthcoming). The Place of Technologies in Music, in Ead., Voce Sola, cit.

Fig. 2. Riccardo Sinigaglia Ensemble (Riccardo Sinigaglia, Romina Daniele, Omar Dodaro, Danio Catanuto, Danilo Zaffaroni). The visual architecture of the project and the communicative iconography curated for the release (RDM Records, 2026) operate as a metatextual extension of the inquiry: the veiled figure and the reworking of the scenic-performative presence do not constitute a mere promotional garment, but an ostentation of the visual envelope aimed at making explicit the para-acousmatic threshold between corporeal presence and acoustic dematerialization. Beyond Schaeffer's acousmatic veil, the material/optical veil prefigures the para-acousmatic threshold and its short-circuit, in which the image is partially hidden/suspended, like the sound source. (Visual elaboration: RDM Records).

PART II. The Theoretical-Epistemological Bridge

Voce Sola (Romina Daniele, RDM Records, forthcoming) represents the fruit of years of theoretical-practical research that is configured not as a treatise on compositional technique or an acoustics manual, but as an epistemology of perception and a «study on man» conducted alongside the technological apparatus. The formulation of this research primacy — with particular reference to Chapter II, «The Place of Technologies in Music», cited herein —, unfolds through the theoretical matrices of a number of key figures in philosophy and film theory, such as: Jean Epstein, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Walter Benjamin, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Chion, and Trevor Wishart.

The dissertation demonstrates and enriches a number of fundamental points: the use of electroacoustic technologies operates on this side of notational convention, placing itself in perfect continuity with the concepts of photogénie and the «optical unconscious» [14]; the employment of electroacoustic technologies and research on vocality are not reduced to a musical theory, a compositional technique, or an avant-garde linguistic option; they constitute the very enactment of a metatextual and transdisciplinary apparatus of inquiry, which is why the manifesto of this magazine openly declares itself apprehensive of «the epistemological values of the work of art» [15]. The terminological register of the chapter borrowed here from Voce Sola orbits around rigorous expressions such as: «apparatus of inquiry», «simultaneity of practices» (shooting/recording, fixation, editing), «fixed sound and electroacoustic uniqueness», «on this side of the construct and notational convention», «infinitesimal motions of thought», and «written language of reality». In particular, the exploration of French Impressionist cinema and the concept of photogénie (Delluc, Epstein) show how the machine isolates the object from its customary context to reveal its «poetry of matter». In parallel with the Benjaminian concept of the «optical unconscious» — where the close-up expands space and slow motion expands movement, revealing previously invisible «structural formations of matter» —, the technological apparatus operates an analogous unveiling of the micro-morphologies of voice and sound. Electroacoustic recording and processing do not alter real data, but release its «infinitesimal motions» that escape natural hearing [16].

To this framework connects the Deleuzian nexus tied to the «impulse-image» (Cinema 1, Chapter 8): in Deleuze, Epstein (with slow motion disarticulating action) and Pasolini (with the physical sacredness of the pre-industrial body) share the capacity to tear the fragment from the narrative flow to bring forth the «originative world» of matter. Both Epstein’s slow motion, which unhinges the sensory-motor schema, and Pasolini’s corporeal and archaic presence act by extracting detail from the ordinary context to bring forth the sensible continuity of matter and reality. From the perspective of the «electroacoustic imperative», music produced with new technologies carries out on sound the exact same extraction of «pure matter» that Epstein and Pasolini carry out on the image, treating sound and voice not as functional elements of the narrative, but as pure material presence. In Cinema 2, Deleuze then articulates these procedures — with fundamental pages on Epstein, his slow motions, and his superimpositions — in terms of purely optical and sound descriptions.

In fact, Deleuze identifies in the French director one of the earliest precursors of the rupture of the sensory-motor schema: the systematic use of slow motion, superimpositions, and manipulations of playback speed generates veritable «purely optical and sound situations» (OPS). Under these conditions, action gives way to pure perception and description. Image and sound cease to function as mere narrative vehicles to become «time-crystal» — or of indifferentiation between the real and the imaginary, contexts in which the real and the virtual, the present and the memory interpenetrate indistinguishably —, a concept that will find a rather precise counterpart in electroacoustic improvisation and the «para-acousmatic» that we are about to discuss [17].

In Heretical Empiricism, Pasolini defines reality as the primary language and the technological apparatus as its immanent «written language» [18]. Relating this assertion to musical writing makes it possible to overcome the centuries-old subordination of music to traditional notation, to the staff, or to any subsequent legacy attempting to force even electroacoustic music into a system of notation, albeit an alternative one. The apparatus does not create a symbolic copy or an abstraction of sound; it directly writes acoustic reality. Fixation on a medium thus constitutes a new paradigm of concrete, immediate writing devoid of abstract mediations: the direct writing of perceptual and real matter. As formulated by Michel Chion in The Art of Fixed Sounds, fixation on a medium establishes «fixed sound» as a new compositional material, rendering the traditional score a deceptive stage that limits and alters listening [19]. The concrete work stabilizes on the medium and erases any abstract intermediation.

As will be further explored in the subsequent inquiry dedicated to the medium and technique [20], the temptation to replace classical notation with purely algorithmic approaches or with alternative and graphic notation systems constitutes a false emancipation applied to electroacoustic music. It addresses not only the obsolescence of the traditional staff, but also the neopositivist reductionism of the computational analysis of the medium (e.g., transforming Cathy Berberian’s voice into a mere spectral graph) [21]. Abandoning the discrete grid of pitches and durations of the staff to take refuge in the graphic rendering of the spectrogram (frequencies, decibels, millihertz) does not liberate music. If visual access to the spectral structure represents a descriptive achievement of extraordinary scope, mistaking such an analytical tool for the essence of the work equals a transfer of scientism: one moves from discrete symbolic calculation to the quantitative positivism of the signal, through a technocratic objectification of sound. The filter of spectrographic analysis and acoustic-computational modeling reduces phoné to a spreadsheet, losing the phenomenological experience, the friction of the medium, the semantic deferral (différance), the poetic gesture of editing, the work as it truly is. Spectral visualization measures the acoustic phenomenon uncritically, but remains blind to the formal intention, to the syntax, and to the architecture of meaning demanded by the razor blade on tape.

Returning for a moment to our analysis, the algorithmic approach — however advanced — often remains, in the compositional realm as in the analytical one, a derivative of the «notational construct» and of discrete symbolic calculation: a system of a priori rules that prescribes to the computer what to generate, instead of listening to and directly investigating the material continuity of sound.

This assertion finds full and explicit historical-bibliographical confirmation in the compositional and theoretical literature analyzed in Chapter II of Voce Sola, with Smalley, Camilleri, and Wishart [22]. Electroacoustic sound forms define themselves in the becoming of time through the acousmatic experience. No algorithmic score or spectrographic graph can capture their essence, because the material continuum transcends any discrete segmentation. Such continuous morphologies are structurally ungraspable both by the staff and by any alternative notation or graphic/algorithmic representation, since perceived electroacoustic matter transcends every discrete grid of pitches and durations.

The only immanent text is the sound object recorded on medium or hard disk. Any representation or analysis algorithm is a provisional and heuristic tool, never the work itself.

Finally, the nomadic structure of the «rhizome» — theorized in A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze and Guattari — finds its echo in Trevor Wishart’s concept of the «lattice», through which the electroacoustic approach establishes itself free from notational or methodological prisons. These kinds of connections distance us from any realm of ideological or school-based opposition (avant-garde vs. tradition, tone vs. noise), placing us on the path of operating within a differential openness. The rhizomatic approach thus proves to be foundational, co-originary, to a pure electroacoustic approach — pure precisely because it is undifferentiated with respect to the dichotomy between fixed composition, acousmatic writing, and improvisation — where voice and instruments coexist; it allows the non-hierarchical coexistence of melodies, verses, classical forms, and computer-processed sound micro-morphologies. Furthermore, the present author composes by placing the voice within the electroacoustic space: this is equivalent to conceiving the voice as an inexhaustible concrete object, within a rhizomatic and differential openness in which rigor of inquiry, historical memory, and pure perceptual presence converge without the constraints of schools or ideological opposites [23].

Applied to the context of electroacoustic improvisation or composition and «para-acousmatic» listening, the model of Cinema 2 allows for interpreting the acousmatic gesture not as simple synchronic or decorative accompaniment, but as the emergence of a pure, non-chronological time. Manipulated sound, analogous to Epsteinian cinematic slow motion which unhinges the sensory-motor schema, reveals the morphological-infinitesimal nature of sound matter, transforming the compositional essay and the live performance into a direct exploration of virtual time and of the «time-crystal» of the work [24]. As already highlighted in 2010 — in the essay «On the relationship between audio and image in the live experience of July 17, 2010, in which the concert coincides with the screening of the film La chute de la Maison Usher(Jean Epstein, France, 1928)» [25] —, the key points of this discourse applied to the live electroacoustic sonorization of Epstein’s masterpiece are as follows:

From Classical Timbre to the Sound Object (The De-contextualization of the Instrument): In the transition conceptualized by Pierre Schaeffer from «timbre» — understood as a mere ornamental category and secondary attribute of classical notational grammar — to «sound» and the «sound object», the electroacoustic paradigm enacts a true uprooting and delocalization of the instrumental ensemble [26]. The close miking and real-time digital processing of the bassoon (Danilo Zaffaroni) and piano (Omar Dodaro) deconstruct the classical identity of the acoustic instrument. Emission is no longer bound to its cause or to its accompanying function, but is converted into pure «sound matter», revealing an acoustic microscopy and a perceptual grain otherwise inaccessible to natural listening.

Gestural Sensor Technology as a Physical-Psychic Continuum: Sensor technology and live interactions between performer and computer achieve the real-time overcoming of traditional notation. The use of the Wii controller by Danio Catanuto is not a technological gimmick, but the tangible bridge between the performer’s «physical gesture» and the manipulation of «sound matter»; it materializes the «simultaneity of practices» (bodily action, digital sensing, sound generation) in real time: the performer’s physical movement is intercepted by the sensors and delivered simultaneously as a direct modulation of acoustic matter. By eliminating the temporal and conceptual gap between executive intention, athletic gesture, and sound generation, sensor technology replaces the abstract mediation of the prescriptive score with a real-time sensorimotor immanence.

Estranging Vocality as Voice-Subject and Mark of Enunciation: The analysis of key sequences (the incipit/tavern, the death/coffin of Ligeia/Lady Usher, the final resurrection, and the fall of the house) highlights the role of estranging vocality. Vocality acts as a «voice-subject» and mark of enunciation (according to Christian Metz’s categorizations) [27]. Deliberately positioning itself on this side of lip synchrony, the descriptive function is bypassed; the voice turns out to be estranging and suspended between diegetic and extradiegetic, manifesting the very presence of the apparatus of inquiry and embodying Pasolini’s «written language of reality», which speaks directly to the viewer [28].

Fig. 3. Jean Epstein, The Fall of the House of Usher (1928). Marguerite Gance in the role of Madeline Usher wrapped in the funeral/wedding veil.

The focus here is placed on a live sonorization of an improvisational nature, yet it is the computer-based processing of any recorded sound on medium — whether originating from improvisation or prior planning — that constitutes the true core of analytical and compositional inquiry. This labor takes place directly on the apparatus through processing and editing operations, positioning itself once again on this side of algorithmic grids or scores: the true immanent writing of the work resides in the medium itself.

Performative Threshold and Ontological Tension: The Category of the «Para-Acousmatic»

The discourse on the voice as a «voice-subject», a mark of enunciation, and Pasolini’s «immanent written language of reality» connects in a deeply rooted and direct manner to the neologism «para-acousmatic» (introduced and formalized in the critical study The Resonance of the «Déjà-Là»: Correspondences, Inversions, and Material Frictions Between Chion’s Impossible History and the «Elettroacoustic Imperative», Daniele, 2026) [29].

The concept of the «para-acousmatic» defines a radical threshold and a structural condition of listening and enunciation: it occurs when the visual or diegetic source is visible or theoretically identified in space (such as the physical presence of the performer, the mouth, or the dispositif [apparatus] of inquiry), but the status of the acoustic and vocal material — through density, divestment, syntactic desynchronization, and morphological violence — deviates toward the properties of reduced listening and emancipation typical of the acousmatic phenomenon. This fracture reverberates directly and seismically upon the «audiovisual contract» theorized by Michel Chion [30], giving rise to what can be defined in all respects as an audiovisual short-circuit.

In classical cinema (considering Chion’s model), audiovisual relationships are founded on three stable coordinates: onscreen sound (in), offscreen sound (hors-champ), and acousmatic sound (acousmatique). While modern cinema had already begun to crack this contract — consider the fusion of biological breath and Ligeti’s frequency masses in Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey), the acoustic traumas, rattles, and vocal/sonic debris in Pasolini (Teorema) and Tarkovsky (Stalker), or the saturation of the harmonica's whistle in Morricone/Leone — the «para-acousmatic» transcends both the classical model and the subversions of modern cinema, refusing to position itself as a mere «montage counterpoint» or syntactic expedient.

Along the theoretical trajectory leading from the inquiry into Ascenseur pour l'échafaud to the formalization of the «electroacoustic imperative» [31], this paradigm opens up further horizons of inquiry. It provides a doorway for theoretical investigation into those rare instances where mechanical, profilmic noise transfigures into an autonomous electroacoustic continuum while remaining ostentatiously visible in frame — an ontological shift whose historical developments extend from the early analog intuitions of modern cinema (Louis Malle, 1957) to the saturated industrial soundscapes of David Lynch [32]:

• It is not pure Acousmatics: In classical acousmatic listening (Schaeffer, Chion), the visual source is deliberately hidden to focus the listener solely on the sound matter. [33]

• It is not mere Offscreen or Onscreen Sound: In offscreen sound, the source lies beyond the frame; in onscreen sound (in), it responds to direct causal mimesis.

• It is a threshold of Audiovisual Short-Circuit and Perceptive: In the «para-acousmatic», the diegetic source is ostentatiously present before the spectator’s eyes. However, the generated acoustic material possesses such density, electroacoustic processing, and morphological violence that it triggers a reversible osmosis and an ontological friction between visual matter and sonic matter (a material continuum). The spectator no longer experiences sound as a mere «commentary» or «effect», but is instead confronted by an acoustic block in which the distinction between what belongs to the scene and what belongs to the autonomized emission is liquidated: the sonic material refuses to be reabsorbed by the image, despite appearing inextricably welded to it.

Two crucial nodes stand out in the genealogy of this concept:

• The case of Ascenseur pour l'échafaud: If the creaking structure of the elevator produces a diegetic noise and a jazz commentary is superimposed upon it, the relationship remains binary (diegetic/extradiegetic). The «para-acousmatic» dimension emerges at the precise moment when the deep pizzicato of the double bass and the metallic frequency of the motor weld into a single electroacoustic body: the frequencies of the scored instrument and the noise of the profilmic scene enter into a cross-material interpenetration. The double bass seems to spring from the metallic density of the elevator cage and, conversely, the mechanical noise assumes the gravity and structure of a compositional frequency block. The visual presence of the iron cage compels the eye to anchor the sound to the machine, yet the spectral micro-structure enforces reduced listening. The brain oscillates in a continuous short-circuit between the visible cause and the radical autonomy of the sonic matter. The listener no longer consumes the «noise of the machine», but is struck by a pure sonic material that refuses to be reabsorbed by the image, even while sharing the very same space. An hybridization is thus triggered in which the machine’s real sound transfigures into an autonomous electroacoustic block: the spectator no longer distinguishes the instrument from the environmental noise, captured by the intrinsic resistance of the sonic continuum [34].

• Eraldo Bocca’s Spatial Lutherie: In an acousmatic concert setting, the architecture of the loudspeakers is visible within the performance space. The listener accepts that the emission originates from these physical devices. In Bocca’s spatial lutherie—which inherits and advances the historical genealogy of loudspeaker orchestras (from the Pupitre de relief to the Gmebaphone, up to Bayle’s GRM Acousmonium and Prager’s MOTUS)—the presence of the infrastructure (developed into an orchestra of up to 80 diffusers) is not reduced to a mere technical terminal. The specific acoustic architecture, based on the deployment of Bessel arrays, D’Appolito configurations, and dipolar reflection diffusers, combined with the millimeter-level signal modulation across spatialized pieces and the meticulous deployment of the speaker cabinets, determines a live sound direction that turns spatialization into a «second-degree writing». Thus, the «para-acousmatic» short-circuit is triggered: on the one hand, the eye focuses on the speaker cabinet, yet the sonic matter takes on a life of its own, devoid of any corporeal or mechanical anchoring, imposing itself in its own right; on the other hand, the loudspeakers impose their presence by adopting the metaphor of «electroacoustic actors» endowed with their own «theatrical grain» and scenic fisionomy, exhibiting the very material of the performance and restoring to listening the vertigo of a unique, carnal, and unrepeatable event [35].

The theoretical innovation of the «para-acousmatic» lies in having formalized this ontological friction:

• The cognitive paradox: The eye registers the presence of the body (the performer, the speaker cabinet, the apparatus), while the ear perceives a fixed or processed sonic matter that transcends and refutes that very body.

• Overcoming the visual/acousmatic dualism: With the stark opposition between the visible and the invisible dissipated, the «para-acousmatic» identifies an intermediate realm in which the visual presence of the source becomes an empty envelope or a visual-affective counterweight to the autonomy of the sonic matter. It situates itself on this side of dualistic logic and the theory of opposites [36].
  

The image no longer succeeds in «taming» or justifying the sound material, despite facing it head-on. If the traditional «audio-visual contract» (according to Chion’s classical model) is broken, this does not imply that the relationship between eye and ear vanishes or becomes irrelevant; rather, it transforms from a relation of mimetic submission into one of ontological friction and tension. Unlike the semantic or de-synchronous departure of modern cinema, the «para-acousmatic» thus constitutes a theoretical specificity and a turning point at the level of the material transmutation of sound. The «para-acousmatic» is as one with the pure electroacoustic sense:

• Classical Acousmatics does not break the contract; it sidesteps it: By concealing the visual source behind the Schaefferian «veil», acousmatics purifies listening by eliminating sight altogether.

• The Para-Acousmatic thrives in visible disruption: The «para-acousmatic» does not merely erase the source; it leaves it exposed and present before the spectator. Breaking the contract in the direct presence of the source itself causes the image (the performer, the speaker cabinet, the apparatus) to become the visible shell of a perceived short-circuit.

The significance of the «para-acousmatic» resides precisely in formalizing this third path: the listener encounters the paradox of an audio-visual experience in which the acoustic matter refuses to be tamed or justified by the physical presence of the visible apparatus or body. The breaking of the contract is not an annulment, but the emergence of a space of resistance within the sonic matter.

In the live scoring of La chute de la Maison Usher, the discourse on the voice recalls and develops the «para-acousmatic» through the following key points:

• Exceeding synchrony and Source Autonomy: The voice deliberately places itself on this side of lip synchrony or mimetic description. Although embodied and produced by the physical presence of the performer on stage/in the hall (the source being known and visible), the «estranging» vocality refuses to serve the image. Floating suspended between the diegetic and the extradiegetic, it operates precisely within the «para-acousmatic» threshold.

• Mark of Enunciation and Contribution of the Real: Rather than disappearing behind cinematic fiction (as a dubbed voice or classical voice-over would), the vocality exhibits the friction of the apparatus. It functions as a «subject-voice» because it triggers an osmotic reversibility and an unstable tension with the diegesis and the profilmic layer of Epstein’s film: faced with the visual figure of Madeleine Usher, the spectator slips into a perceptual short-circuit where the boundary between the live emission of the performer and the filmic body printed on the screen dissolves. The line of demarcation between the concrete presence in the hall and the visual trace of the artwork is erased, rendering indecipherable the threshold where sound anchors to or emancipates from the image. It acquires an autonomous investigative status, transforming into a transdiegetic physical presence that speaks directly to the spectator [37].

• From Body to Sonic Matter: Just as in the concept of the «para-acousmatic» the presence of the source does not reassure the gaze but shatters the referential pact, so the estranging vocality prompts in the spectator a reduced listening applied directly to the presence of the screen and the scene: while visually registering the body/machine in action, the ear perceives phoneme, breath, and articulation as pure acoustic matter and son-signe (pure acoustic sign), imposing the emancipation of listening without extinguishing the image.

In summary, this configuration of vocality directly binds to the theoretical status of the «para-acousmatic» (Daniele, 2026) [38]. Within this horizon, the physical and scenic presence of the voice (whose bodily source is known or visible on this side of the cinematic apparatus) never slips into passive visual subordination nor into mimetic synchrony, nor is it exhausted within the time-tested dialectical counterpoint of modern cinema. By exceeding lip synchrony and placing itself on this side of mere descriptive function, the voice crosses the subtle threshold of the «para-acousmatic»: an enunciation in which the vocal material—through density, estrangement, and syntactical emancipation—deviates toward the morphology of reduced listening typical of the acousmatic phenomenon, while remaining anchored to the striking immediacy of the body and the scene. The voice ceases to be commentary or a syntactical cut to become a «subject-voice» and a transdiegetic sonic body, revealing the friction of the investigative apparatus and embodying Pasolini's «written language of reality» in an immanent and unrepeatable present.

Notes to Part II

[14] On the theoretical matrices of the optical unconscious, the Pasolinian «written language of reality», and the rhizomatic model applied to sonic micro-morphologies, see: Delluc, L., & Epstein, J. (1921–1928). Le concept de photogénie dans le cinéma impressionniste français, cit. in Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K. (1993). Film History: An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill [Italian trans. Storia del cinema e dei film. Dalle origini al 1945. Milan: Il Castoro, 1998, p. 143]; Benjamin, W. (1936). Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit[Italian trans. L'opera d'arte nell'epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica. Turin: Einaudi, 1966, pp. 22–48; English ed. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction]; Pasolini, P. P. (1972). Empirismo eretico. Milan: Garzanti, p. 204 [English ed. Heretical Empiricism]; Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1980). Mille Plateaux - Capitalisme et schizophrénie. Paris: Éditions de Minuit [Italian trans. Millepiani. Capitalismo e schizofrenia. Rome: Castelvecchi, 2000; English ed. A Thousand Plateaus]; Wishart, T. (1985). On Sonic Art. York: Imagineering Press, pp. 4, 6 (all analyzed in Daniele, R., Il luogo delle tecnologie nella musica [The Place of Technologies in Music], in Ead., Voce Sola, cit.).

[15] RDM Records Editorial Team, & ElectroAcoustics Board. (2026). «La ricerca intorno al suono e le tecnologie. Arts & Technologies Manifesto» [«Research around Sound and Technologies: Arts & Technologies Manifesto»]. ElectroAcoustics Magazine, cit.

[16] Daniele, R. (forthcoming). Il luogo delle tecnologie nella musica [The Place of Technologies in Music], in Ead., Voce Sola, cit.

[17] To fully comprehend the trajectory that leads Epsteinian experimentation toward the practices of electroacoustic composition and improvisation, Gilles Deleuze’s contribution proves indispensable. In his two volumes dedicated to the philosophy of cinema, Deleuze formalizes the passage from the movement-image regime to that of the time-image, offering an essential analytical key for examining the processes of sonorization and rhythmization of matter. In Cinema 1: The Movement-Image (1983), Deleuze locates Jean Epstein’s work within the dynamics of the impulse-image and early French impressionism. In this phase, cinematic matter is traversed by cosmic and fetishistic forces—clearly visible in the material decay of La chute de la Maison Usher—where visual detail and edited rhythm respond to a sensory drive still tied to the sensory-motor schema. However, it is with Cinema 2: The Time-Image (1985) that Deleuzian thought provides the most radical epistemological tools for our field of inquiry. See Deleuze, G. (1983). Cinéma 1. L'image-mouvement. Paris: Éditions de Minuit [Italian trans. Cinema 1. L'immagine-movimento. Milan: Ubulibri, 1984 / Milan: Feltrinelli, 2016, pp. 153–175; English trans. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986] (for Epstein see p. 156, pp. 162–163; for Pasolini see pp. 172–174); Deleuze, G. (1985). Cinéma 2. L'image-temps. Paris: Éditions de Minuit [Italian trans. Cinema 2. L'immagine-tempo. Milan: Ubulibri, 1989 / Milan: Feltrinelli, 2017, pp. 68–71, pp. 190–192; English trans. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989].

[18] Pasolini, P. P. (1972). Empirismo eretico, cit., p. 204 [English ed. Heretical Empiricism].

[19] Chion, M. (1991). L'Art des sons fixes ou La Musique Concrètement. Paris: Métamkine / Ina-GRM [Italian trans. L'arte dei suoni fissati o La Musica Concretamente. Rome: Edizioni Interculturali, 2004, pp. 10–91] (cited in Daniele, R., Il luogo delle tecnologie nella musica, in Ead., Voce Sola, cit., Ch. II, pp. 4–6).

[20] Daniele, R. (forthcoming). La scrittura e il supporto. Ulteriori indagini intorno all'atto compositivo in Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) [Writing and the Medium: Further Investigations around the Composional Act in Thema (Homage to Joyce)]. ElectroAcoustics Magazine. Milan: RDM Records (on the critique of neo-positivist reductionism that reduces the vocal event and the presence of historic performers such as Cathy Berberian to pure quantitative representation or spectrographic trace; the analysis demonstrates how graphic rendering remains blind to formal intention, to the poetic gesture of editing, and to the estesic nature of fixed sound).

[21] Ibidem.

[22] On overcoming the notational construct, algorithmic calculation, and spectrographic reductionism in favor of the immanence of the sound text and the open approach (open-ended), see: Smalley, D. (1995). La spectromorphologie: une explication des formes du son [Italian trans. in Musica/Realtà, no. 50, Lucca: LIM, 1996, pp. 121–149; English version: «Spectromorphology: understanding sound shapes», Computer Music Journal, 21(2), 1997, pp. 10–26]; Camilleri, L. (1993). Metodologie e concetti analitici nello studio di musiche elettroacustiche. Rivista Italiana di Musicologia, XXVIII(1), Florence: Olschki, pp. 131–174; Wishart, T. (1994). Audible Design: A Plain and Easy Introduction to Sound Composition. York: Orpheus The Pantomime Ltd, pp. 2, 24, 103–104 (all analyzed in Daniele, R., Il luogo delle tecnologie nella musica, in Ead., Voce Sola, cit.).

[23] Daniele, R. (forthcoming). Il luogo delle tecnologie nella musica, in Ead., Voce Sola, cit.

[24] Deleuze, G. (1985) [Italian trans. 1989 / 2017, pp. 68–71, pp. 190–192, cit.]. For the formalization of the «time-crystal» and pure optical and sound descriptions (OPS), see in particular the treatment of Epsteinian slow motion, ibid., ch. 1.

[25] Daniele, R. (2010). Sul rapporto tra audio e immagine nell'esperienza dal vivo del 17 Luglio 2010 in cui il concerto coincide con la proiezione del film La chute de la Maison Usher (Jean Epstein, France, 1928) [On the Relationship between Audio and Image in the Live Experience of July 17, 2010 in which the Concert Coincides with the Screening of the Film La chute de la Maison Usher (Jean Epstein, France, 1928)]. Milan (originally published on rominadaniele.com and reproduced as Part 3 of the present inquiry).

[26] Schaeffer, P. (1966). Traité des objets musicaux. Paris: Éditions du Seuil (in relation to the notions of «sound object» and «reduced listening», analyzed in Daniele, R., Il luogo delle tecnologie nella musica, in Ead., Voce Sola, cit.).

[27] Metz, C. (1991). L'énonciation impersonnelle, ou le site du film. Paris: Méridiens Klincksieck [Italian trans. L'enunciazione impersonale, o il luogo del film, ed. A. Sainati, Naples: ESI, 1995]; Chion, M. (1981). La voix au cinéma. Paris: Éditions de l'Étoile [Italian trans. La voce nel cinema. Turin: Pratiche, 1991; English trans. The Voice in Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999] (for the theorization of the voice-subject and the presence of the voice outside the mimetic contract).

[28] Daniele, R. (forthcoming). Il luogo delle tecnologie nella musica, in Ead., Voce Sola, cit.

[29] Daniele, R. (2026). The Resonance of the «Déjà-Là»: Correspondences, Inversions, and Material Frictions Between Chion’s Impossible History and the «Elettroacoustic Imperative». ElectroAcoustics Magazine, 2026 Series, Art. 2026.05.en (Selected for Arts & Technologies Print Edition). DOI: eam.2026.05.en. https://rdmrecords.com/the-resonance-of-the-deja-electroacoustic (in which the first definition of the neologism para-acousmatic is formalized in relation to audible editing and detachment from mimesis. See in particular Part III: Clarification Note on the Departure from Modern Cinema and the Overdetermination of the Para-Acousmatic).

[30] Chion, M. (1990). L'audio-vision. Son et image au cinéma. Paris: Éditions Nathan [Italian trans. L'audiovisione. Suono e immagine nel cinema. Turin: Lindau, 2001; English trans. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994] (in Ch. 1, Chion theorizes the audiovisual contract as the implicit agreement in which sound and image mutually value and modify each other, transforming the experience into a single entity rather than the sum of two distinct sensory channels).

[31] On the analysis of acoustic architecture, material noise, and soundscape in Tarkovsky’s cinema, see: Tarkovsky, A. (1986). Scolpire il tempo. Milan: Ubulibri, 2002 [English trans. Sculpting in Time. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1986]; Truppin, A. (1992). And Then There Was Sound: The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky, in R. Altman (Ed.), Sound Theory/Sound Practice. New York: Routledge, pp. 235–248; Pontara, T. (2019). Andrei Tarkovsky's Sounding Cinema: Music and Meaning from Solaris to The Sacrifice. London–New York: Routledge. On the exploration of the industrial drone, sound textures, and the acousmatic dimension in David Lynch’s cinema, see: Chion, M. (1995). David Lynch. Turin: Lindau, 2006 [English trans. David Lynch. London: BFI, 1995]; Devlin, W. J., & Biderman, S. (Eds.) (2011). The Philosophy of David Lynch. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky; Hainge, G. (2013). Noise Matters: Towards an Ontology of Noise. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

[32] On this, see the examination contained in: Daniele, R. (2026). The Resonance of the «Déjà-Là», cit.; Daniele, R. (2010). Ascenseur pour l'échafaud, il luogo della musica nell'audiovisione [Ascenseur pour l'échafaud: The Place of Music in Audio-Vision]. Milan: RDM Records Edizioni Letterarie.

[33] Schaeffer, P. (1966). Traité des objets musicaux. Paris: Éditions du Seuil (in relation to the notions of «sound object» and «reduced listening», analyzed in Daniele, R., Il luogo delle tecnologie nella musica, in Ead., Voce Sola, cit.).

[34] Daniele, R., The Resonance of the «Déjà-Là», cit.; Daniele, R. (2010). Ascenseur pour l'échafaud, il luogo della musica nell'audiovisione, cit.

[35] Daniele, R. (2026). Spatialization as an Ontological Act: The Spatial Lutherie of Eraldo Bocca and the Resistance of Matter. ElectroAcoustics Magazine, 2026 Series, Art. 2026.08.en (Selected for Arts & Technologies Print Edition). DOI: Pre-assigned (eam.2026.08.en). Available at: https://rdmrecords.com/spatialization-as-an-ontological-act

[36] Daniele, R. (forthcoming). Il luogo delle tecnologie nella musica [The Place of Technologies in Music], in Ead., Voce Sola, cit.

[37] Metz, C. (1991). L'enunciazione impersonale, o il luogo del film, cit. [English ed. Impersonal Enunciation, or the Place of Film]; Chion, M. (1981). La voce nel cinema, cit. [English ed. The Voice in Cinema].

[38] Daniele, R. (2026). The Resonance of the «Déjà-Là», cit.

PART III. Audio-Vision in «La Chute de la Maison Usher»

The Historical Essay (Integrated and Editorial Version)

Editorial Note: The text that follows reproduces the historical drafting of the essay On the Relationship between Audio and Image in the Live Experience of July 17, 2010, written during the author's years at the Milan Conservatory. For the purposes of the present publication, the essay has undergone a targeted editorial revision: general theoretical digressions already examined and published in the monograph (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud: The Place of Music in Audio-Vision, 2010) — which constitutes the indispensable foundation as well as the essential theoretical, historical, and critical framework of this study — have been removed in order to preserve the analytical focus on Jean Epstein’s work, on electroacoustic improvisation, and on the audiovisual dialectic anchored to the live performance.

Introduction

Within the framework of the «Suono-Immagine» festival, organized by the Milan Conservatory in collaboration with Anteo Spazio Cinema, a live improvisation concert took place in coincidence with the screening of the silent film La chute de la Maison Usher (by Jean Epstein, France, 1928). The expressions «live concert» and «in coincidence» are employed here to designate the distinctiveness of the experience under inquiry, and thus its distance from the more common concept of «musical commentary». The latter has given rise, throughout the history of the relationships between music and cinema and between sound and image [39], to no few misunderstandings as well as to fruitful debates. Coincidence, which is to say interaction and a dialectical relationship between two media — the music improvised live by the ensemble, and the silent film being screened — rather than commentary, insofar as the latter is by definition «an interpretation, an evaluation, a judgment», coming to identify across art history and criticism — and consequently within a specific history of music or «film music» — «that which places itself in the background relative to the true work of art». The discourse of cinema as a work of art, along with the very «concept of modernity», cuts across historical periods in relation to the thought and philosophy of its authors. Consequently, a text (specifically cinematographic) constitutes an act; that is, it measures itself through what is perceptible of its author’s work via more or less explicit enunciative marks [40]. Given that the film on the one hand, and the concert on the other, represent two distinct languages, each endowed with its own structures and properties yet powerfully interacting, it becomes clear how the experience under inquiry generated a unique and unrepeatable level of existence for the work of art. This level of existence, which is termed audio-visual, took place starting from the interaction/coincidence between the silent film screened — image — and the live concert improvised — sound.

Fig. 4. Jean Epstein, The Fall of the House of Usher (1928). Perspective view of the monumental hall of the Usher house.

Sound, Music, and Silent Cinema

As we have previously clarified [41], in order to speak of sound in cinema, it is necessary to distinguish the sound dimension—which constitutes a network of aesthetic, technical, and linguistic relationships—from the music of a film, which intervenes upon the meaning of the filmic reality by virtue of its formal qualities and its modes of realization-production.

Our experience of improvisation in relation to Epstein’s silent film operates within the realm of its sound dimension rather than that of film music proper. This is due to the absence of both the conditions for a fully structured intervention upon the narrative—which would only be possible by excluding improvisation—and the relationship with the modes of realization-production, which would have been possible had we collaborated with Epstein back in 1928. However, if we consider the intervention upon the meaning of filmic reality via direct sound capture (in presa diretta)—the core condition of our experience—and by virtue of its formal qualities, we realize that the aforementioned sound dimension in cinema, as a network of aesthetic, technical, and linguistic relationships, can either include or exclude the music of a film, but not vice versa. In other words: music can operate within the sound dimension in cinema independently of the film's realization-production. And this is precisely our case.

This was not always the case in silent cinema, whose history is rich in live musical accompaniments—practices that, moreover, have very often represented an encumbering aesthetic legacy in sound cinema from its earliest days up to the present. Indeed, then as now, there remains the open problem of «a use of sound in a complementary and dialectical function relative to the image and editing, rather than a purely integrative or pleonastic one» [42].

Such commercial exploitation or pleonastic usage thus also constitutes the underlying reason for the rejection that many cinematic authors manifested toward sound at the moment of its historical appearance—which, it should be recalled, occurred in 1927, a mere year prior to Epstein's film under inquiry.

In light of these considerations, La chute de la Maison Usher stands as an emblematic example of this debate, being a silent film released precisely at a time when technical means would have already permitted sonorization (sonorizzazione) [43]. Within its strongly enunciated visual charge—frequently defined as an emblematic fusion of Impressionism, Expressionism, and Symbolism—everything in the film tends toward sound, toward what we identify as the sound dimension of the representation. This is achieved through well-marked references to natural noises, otherwise known as environmental sounds, as well as to disparate musics.

The sound dimension of this film, despite the absence of actual recorded sound, is particularly rich and enabled us to intervene at the level of «added value» (suono aggiunto) [44] in diverse ways, both in modes and in gestures: at times literally sonorizing (sonorizzando), as in the emblematic case of the opening (and closing) titles and the incipit; at other times dramatizing, as in the emblematic sequence of the closing of Lady Usher's coffin [45].

Jean Epstein’s Innovations

Epstein’s 1928 film, beyond genre definitions that are ultimately of little consequence [46], stands among the most successful expressions—in silent cinema on the threshold of sound—for the affirmation of cinema as a medium in its own right, which is to say cinema as art. From the early 1920s, Jean Epstein embodied the prototype of what thirty years later, particularly with the French Nouvelle Vague [47]—and more broadly with the international nouvelles vagues—would be defined as the «auteur»: the filmmaker who is also a theorist, writing and producing his work while infusing it with his thought and personal worldview. This represents a mental disposition and an operational condition that indeed, in relation to personal and national styles, characterizes the so-called historical avant-gardes of 1920s cinema—namely the French Impressionist movement, German Expressionism (principally represented by directors Robert Wiene, Fritz Lang, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, and Georg Wilhelm Pabst), and the Soviet School (principally represented by directors Sergei M. Eisenstein, Lev Kuleshov, and Vsevolod Pudovkin).

Prior to the establishment of a standardized cinematic language, historically termed the «classic Hollywood model»—though it would be better termed the «classic model», insofar as it was constructed over the course of a history that was not merely American, and to which the highest-level experiences contributed, including the one under consideration here [48]—as well as following its breakdown, which unquestionably occurred from the very dawn of modern cinema, the «need for self-reference inherent to modern culture itself» unfolds «from within the language» [49]. In this sense, a certain silent cinema of great stylistic weight, such as that of Jean Epstein, would undoubtedly influence all subsequent filmmaking—beginning in that very same year, 1928, with Luis Buñuel’s Un chien andalou [50]—as well as auteur cinema of all eras.

The pillar around which everything revolves is subjectivity: of vision, of the author, of the medium asserting itself, of the characters, of the set design, and of the audience that interprets. Jean Epstein’s film is unquestionably emblematic of the attention devoted to such subjectivity, the rendering of which is entrusted to the most disparate technical apparatuses, from optical effects that alter the vision of the image to the so-called «rapid rhythm» of montage [51], a «discontinuous» montage whose concept comes remarkably close to what we define as «audible montage» [52], referencing both cinema and electronic music. An emblem of such montage presents itself in the sequence of the closing of Lady Usher’s coffin.

Apparatuses Compared: Silent Cinema and Electronic Music

Jean Epstein is the one who particularly insisted, in his writings, «on these subjective and dreamlike states that characterize, in his view, European cinema and, in particular, French cinema» [53].

Just as cinema fixes reality, showing us aspects of it that cannot be perceived within its flow or from within, so too sound recording allows us to work with sounds and unveil otherwise unknown facets of them through direct work inside and upon the material itself. In this sense, the spectator (or audio-spectator) and the listener engage with a work in the active manner demanded by a certain cinema—conventionally defined as «auteur» cinema—and by the composer of electronic music: adopting the state of attentiveness required by the relationship and confrontation with differently processed material.

Cinematic devices such as slow-motion movement or, conversely, the close-up, as well as compositional devices that vary in diverse ways the time of recorded sound (be it natural, urban, or human), similarly reveal «completely new structural formations of matter» that are nevertheless absolutely real, being constitutive of that filmed real movement or that reproduced sonic consistency originally captured from reality.

In light of these assertions, and considering that I have already had occasion to address the relationship between cinema and electroacoustic music regarding composition and montage [54], I outline the key points of the discourse as follows: the multimedia language common to both cinema and electronic music consists fundamentally and technically, on the one hand, in the recording/capture «that fixes» [55] reality onto a medium; on the other hand, in montage understood as an «active instance of organizing discourse»—that is, the instance that asserts, in a single gesture, «both the materiality of the fixing medium and the presence of an organizing will external to the sound» represented by the author, thereby enabling «the sound scene» [56]. Ultimately, in the words of Delalande, «electroacoustic music situates itself between “music”, an art defined by its past, and “technological arts”, whose boiling crucible is the audio-visual world» [57].

Musical Disposition Towards the Film

Let us speak of sound, with the meanings the term assumes when considering the expressions «sound matter» and «sound object». The first term—encompassing the idea of «constructing timbre» and «designating that very thing from which the composer works—appeared in Western music at the exact moment it was no longer satisfied with classical elements: notes, themes, lines, arpeggios, chords» [58]. The second concept is owed to the engineer, musician, and radio operator Pierre Schaeffer, exponent of «concrete music», who used it to designate sound units perceived in their own matter, structure, quality, and perceptual dimensions, detaching them from their initial, real, or imaginary cause. In particular, the «sound object» is «a new object, existing in every respect», something distinct from a simple recording, «from the simple trace of a past event» [59].

In light of what Chion defines as the «audiovisual contract» [60], we have literally given rise to an unmediated «audiovisual dialectic» which, far from involving total fusion, presupposes the disparity of its terms, existing «separately at the same time, each on its own side» [61]: a relationship between the «images, the sonic and the visual», «without subordination or commensurability» [62]. Furthermore, the expression employed here for the first time—«sonic image»—is strictly tied to this «audiovisual dialectic» as well as to the aforementioned metaphor of «counterpoint» [63].

Jean Epstein did not fail to concern himself with the so-called «visual rhythm», in which, indeed, all Impressionists identified «the main matrix of film», confirming their focus «on emotions rather than stories»; an «insistence on the rhythmic element» that, as the authors themselves emphasized, «placed Impressionist film closer to music than to any other art form» [64].

This aspect brings Impressionist film particularly close to Soviet experiments, and specifically to the ideas of Ejzenštejn, who likewise defines rhythm as a «generalized integral representation of the process», arising through «the alternation of contradictory moments internal to its unity» [65]. Jean Epstein’s montage undermines both the «realistic and momentary» character of the image and the «linear and chronological notion of time» in action.

In consideration of this type of montage, our music cannot relate to the visual in a «normalizing» or «stabilizing» manner; being improvised, it depends on the conditions determined by the improvisational practice in that hic et nunc. By virtue of our music, the film as a «reproducible work of art» has gained that element of primordial authenticity, its aura: «the hic et nunc of the work of art—its unique and irreplaceable existence in the place where it happens to be» [66].

The spectator can clearly feel how the music «saturates» and «short-circuits» the image [67]; that is, how it charges the image with itself as an external element that becomes internal in a dramaturgetical manner, but above all becomes the bearer of a meaning beyond the filmic one. Furthermore, it continuously manifests the full power of its activity as an autonomous language with strong marks of enunciation, mostly displaying sparse «points of synchronization» or «false/avoided points of synchronization» [68].

On these latter points and their definition, I dedicated myself in the aforementioned study on audiovision, in which I outlined an audiovisual analysis of Louis Malle's debut film, Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows, France, 1958), in which Miles Davis's soundtrack music was recorded while being improvised based on concise notes taken by the composer on the one hand, and concise directions provided by the director on the other.

In fact, in both cases, the musicians, through improvisation, execute «"naturally" delays and anticipations, precisely as a function of the discontinuity of the image montage» [69].

To these technical considerations regarding language, dramaturgetical ones are added concerning the representation of the scene—both visual and sonic—which we have sought to adhere to in its aesthetic rendering. We refer in particular to the so-called «dreamlike dimension» of cinematic representation.

The filmic image is a «pure optical image»—that is, not indicative of an objective reality in the sense that «the House of Usher is the House of Usher»—but rather denotative of an abstract world in which «the House of Usher is what can be seen in details, movements, fluctuations» [70]. It is a sober and rare image that always refers to a character, «so as to show us pure descriptions that erase themselves in the very moment they are traced» and that «bring the object each time to an essential singularity and describe the inexhaustible, because they refer endlessly to other descriptions» [71].

What derives from this, on the spectator's level, is an extreme form of indiscernibility between real and imaginary, physical and mental, objective and subjective. This mechanism culminates in the opposite pole of the scission between dreamlike experience and narrative reality, as emerges from the comparison between the film's two emblematic sequences:

• The protagonist's death and the closing of her coffin (from the completion of the painting to the shutting of the lid, roughly between minutes 25 and 36), which bears the hallmarks of a dream despite being a real part of the narrative;

• The woman's resurrection and the collapse of the house (from the man's dash upon hearing his wife awaken up to the final collapse, roughly between minutes 54 and 61), which possesses the traits of narrative reality, yet strikes the spectator as a decidedly fantastical finale.

In particular, only the final collapse of the house will characterize the resurrection as a real event within the filmic fiction; thus, the spectator recognizes the dream as typical of the dreamer (the protagonist) and attributes to themselves the consciousness of the dream (that is, the dimension of the real).

The spectator's recognition of the preceding events as a «dream» occurs with the manifestation of the final implied dream. The first moment consists of the protagonist's delusions and agony during the obsessive painting of his wife's portrait, as she falls ill at an inversely proportional rate: a mysterious and improbable event, yet narratively plausible (the explicit dream). The second moment resides in the tangible final collapse of the house, occurring simultaneously with the resurrection: a decidedly fantastical and implausible event, whose nature as an implied dream is declared by the film itself through the calamity of the collapse.

Improvisation and the Relationship with Filmic Language

In general, a certain «audiovisual consistency» is always quite explicit—an expression that denotes «the way in which different sound elements—voice, music, noises—are more or less integrated into the same global paste, a texture, or, on the contrary, deployed each separately in an extremely legible manner» [72]. Considering our ensemble, these three elements were, as if naturally, entrusted to certain instruments rather than others.

In particular, the attacks and air emissions form a single whole with the sound of the bassoon from which they originate; meanwhile, the VST instruments utilized by Maestro Sinigaglia are articulated predominantly in a noise-oriented key and are clearly audible in relation to the opening scene of the film, in which a man treads upon a rough path strewn with small hills and broken branches. The Arp Odyssey played by Francesco Bossi also produces, when required, the sound of the wind.

The instruments functioned in both a commentary and a descriptive manner. The voice, moreover, sometimes joins the visual data, further reinforcing it, and at other times constitutes its own autonomous layer in relation to the music.

In the case of the first sequence, strange whispers and sighs in a «non-language language» characterize the visual field in the soundscape until the exit from the inn. These vocal components, on the one hand, draw inspiration from the objective situation of a group of people in a dim, heavily chiaroscuro-lit setting, who seem to whisper amid feelings of fear, dread, uncertainty, surprise, and panic (the patrons are indeed terrified from the moment the stranger pronounces the name of the dark and mysterious Ushers); on the other hand, they in no way respect the lip movement of the characters, nor their placement in the foreground or background.

The vocal components «interlocute» within the film, and this immediately appears unusual. The condition of indeterminacy of the visual scene, at the narrative level, is likewise reflected in the sound scene; at the same time, however, the latter develops along an independent plane and «adds» to the visual data its own aesthetic disarticulation, bound to the difficult placement of the sounds themselves: unlike the other instruments that create «ambience», they prove estranging because they stand out to the ear both due to their resemblance to the visual events and their divergence from them. It is as if they position themselves halfway between the diegetic and extradiegetica dimensions.

This singularity derives entirely from the very experience of scoring a silent film and is made possible precisely by this nature: the audio-spectator does not expect sonic interventions that relate directly to the diegesis or interlocute with the events of the film. Even less do they expect such a singular interlocution by means of avoided synchrony—that is, one capable of provoking enunciative discrepancies.

In this passage, as in the other emblematic sequences, what charges the images with meaning—beyond their literal sense—is the voice as such: the human voice, the human sound par excellence, that sound which cannot be associated with anything other than a body that emits it: «it is directed outward by the (objective) absence of any interlocution in the film; it gives the impression of addressing the spectator, and therefore of originating from the enunciative origin» [73]. This estranging condition thus configurations itself as a sort of decentralized «voice-subject», vigilant in avoiding synchrony along the terms already delineated.

If it is true that at the moment of improvisation—understood as the live «sounding and musicalization» of the film—we as musicians literally participated in the experience of the film, the following reflection is equally valid for my operation: «The enunciation that makes itself seen is like the author writing in the first person: on the one hand it exposes the "filmic deception", on the other it forms part of it» [74].

In the resurrection sequence as well, the vocal intervention is lyrical, yet more deliberate and marked by an intense tremolo from the moment the woman reappears onward. In the immediately preceding shots, the voice intervenes with brief, distant long tones and semi-whispers, effectively giving body to what Roderick Usher hears. This constitutes the only entirely linear instance of a relationship between voice and image in which the interlocution within the film is strong: the voice embodies precisely the external, distant, non-real voice—otherwise merely imagined—to which the characters refer as if referring to a ghost (and indeed, they refer to the ghost of Madeline Usher). This direct reference to a presence external to the tangible objects of the diegesis, to a ‘non-real’ or presumed presence within the film, renders my vocal intervention perfectly linear, in that my voice participating in the sounding of the film is decidedly external to the film itself: nothing could be more pertinent.

In the sequence of the closing of the coffin, the estranging condition is instead even greater than in those described previously, as the minimal terms of the voice's interlocution within the film are reduced almost to zero. In the dramatic sequence of the death, there is no longer any female figure—neither real nor presumed—but rather a coffin and Mr. Usher's despair before it. The music asserts itself as a true soundtrack score, assuming the more or less decisive tones of a funeral march, and operates in this way as both «reflection» and «commentary» [75], producing both effects of unpredictability—as we have seen—and of maintenance.

In this singular manner, the music positions itself both outside and inside the frame: it is simultaneously «in the pit» and «on the screen» [76], as is rarely possible within a strictly filmic domain.

The rendering of the scene proves, in the end, so exemplary as to appear calculated; we well know, however, that this was not the case, by virtue of the improvisation that formed the foundation of everything. Hence the extraordinary nature of the experience and the raison d'être of these pages.1

Notes to Parts III

[39] The use of «image» in the singular refers to the concept of the «singularity of the cinematic image», upon which we will dwell later, both in relation to the «singularity of sound» and to fundamental aspects of the sound-image relationship—in particular within the section Apparatuses Compared: Silent Cinema, Electronic Music.

[40] See Metz, C. (1991). L'enunciazione impersonale, o il luogo del film [Impersonal Enunciation, or the Site of Film], cit. [It. trans. 1995, pp. 1–22].

[41] Daniele, R. (2010). Ascenseur pour l'échafaud. Il luogo della musica nell'audiovisione [Ascenseur pour l'échafaud: The Place of Music in Audiovision], cit.

[42] See Rondolino, G. (1991). Cinema e Musica. Breve storia della musica cinematografica [Cinema and Music: A Short History of Film Music]. Turin: UTET, pp. 19–24. In particular, with these words Rondolino encapsulates Balázs’s theory in Balázs, B. (1930). Der Geist des Films [The Spirit of Film]. Halle an der Saale: Wilhelm Knapp [It. trans. Estetica del film, Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1975].

[43] «It is usually agreed that the year synchronized sound was introduced was 1927, when Warner Bros. released with enormous success The Jazz Singer (directed by A. Crosland). After a few other partially synchronized films, 1928 saw the triumphant release of the first ‘100% talkie’, The Lights of New York, directed by Bryan Foy.» [Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K. (1998). Storia del cinema e dei film. Dalle origini al 1945 [History of Cinema and Film: From the Origins to 1945], cit., pp. 273–275]. It is necessary, however, to also consider that the filmmakers of French Impressionism, as such, operated by virtue of their own resources and in the absence of large means—indeed, rather on low budgets. It was also in relation to certain constraints that, on the one hand, location shooting was frequent in old mansions, castles, historic buildings, and natural settings such as landscapes and villages; on the other hand, tricks and optical effects were utilized more than elsewhere, as we shall see further on, in close connection with the concept of photogénie.

[44] The value of music with respect to the image is defined as «added» in that it consists of an «expressive and informative value with which a sound enriches a given image, to the point of inducing the belief, in the immediate impression one has of it or in the memory one retains, that this information or expression derives "naturally" from what is seen, and is already contained within the simple image.» [Chion, M. (1991). L'audiovisione. Suono e immagine nel cinema [Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen], cit., pp. 12–13].

[45] We will discuss these emblematic cases at length in the concluding section.

[46] The film is commonly recognized as one of the principal progenitor works of what would later be defined as the «horror genre».

[47] With the French Nouvelle Vague, «following a different and perhaps more authentic inspiration, [cinema] frees itself from function, and presents itself as "language in itself," style» (Pasolini, P. P., 1972, Il "cinema di poesia" [The "Cinema of Poetry"], in Empirismo eretico [Heretical Empiricism], cit., p. 187). Its object thus becomes the cinematic operation itself: «With the Nouvelle Vague, finally, cinema becomes the object of knowledge itself: the Nouvelle Vague—particularly in its Godardian version—challenges the transitiveness of the filmic image, undoing its cardinal points from within: spatio-temporal continuity, the narrative motivation for characters' actions, the grammatical correctness of edits/matches, the self-evidence of represented worlds, etc. Nouvelle Vague cinema interrogates itself first and foremost on the very nature of its forms: documentary, fiction, quotation, construction through juxtaposition, etc. Making films no longer means telling stories, but adopting the attitude of the essayist who reflects—novelistically—on their way of writing essays.» (Sainati, A., 1998, Supporto, soggetto, oggetto: forme di costruzione del sapere dal cinema ai nuovi media [Medium, Subject, Object: Forms of Knowledge Construction from Cinema to New Media], in Costruzione e appropriazione del sapere nei nuovi scenari tecnologici [Construction and Appropriation of Knowledge in New Technological Scenarios]. Naples: CUEN, pp. 154–155). See Daniele, R. (2010), Ascenseur pour l'échafaud. Il luogo della musica nell'audiovisione, Section 2.3. Le due vie possibili [The Two Possible Paths], cit.

[48] «This system was called classical Hollywood cinema, but despite the name, many of the basic principles were worked out before Hollywood became the center of the American film industry and, moreover, were first applied in other countries. In the period preceding World War I, given that films circulated widely outside their country of origin, film style could still be defined as international.» (Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K., 1998, Storia del cinema e dei film [History of Cinema and Film], cit., p. 83).

[49] De Vincenti, G. (1993). Il concetto di modernità nel cinema [The Concept of Modernity in Cinema]. Parma: Le Pratiche, pp. 19–25.

[50] Luis Buñuel, a modern filmmaker active until the end of the 1970s and Epstein's assistant for the film in question, is undoubtedly influenced by the master, especially regarding the surreal aspects he would develop in his early directorial efforts. See Un Chien Andalou (short film, France, 1929).

[51] As read very succinctly in the Garzantina del cinema, edited by G. Canova (2002), since 1923 Epstein had produced films of strong impact: «In L’Auberge rouge [The Red Inn], from a short story by H. de Balzac, in the melodrama Cœur fidèle [Faithful Heart], in La Belle Nivernaise, and La Montagne infidèle [The Treacherous Mountain], faithful to his idea of reaching “the unreal through the means offered by the real“, Epstein indeed shuns traditional horizontal framing as much as possible and relies on long close-ups, on a “language of objects”, always filmed in detail and from accentuated and peculiar angles, and on slow-motion effects which, thanks to skillful editing, create an unsettling atmosphere and confer upon characters and things a metaphorical value that transports them into unreality, without losing their definition as referents of the real.»

[52] Audible montage as an «instance of interrupting sounds in order to assemble them together and thus form audible and pertinent ruptures and edits within musical discourse». (Chion, M., 1991, L'arte dei suoni fissati o La Musica Concretamente [The Art of Fixed Sounds, or Musique Concrète], cit., It. trans. 2004, p. 98).

[53] Deleuze, G. (1985). L’immagine-tempo [Cinema 2: The Time-Image], cit., p. 68.

[54] See Daniele, R. (2010). Il dialogo con la materia disintegrata e ricomposta. Un’analisi di Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) di Luciano Berio [Dialogue with Disintegrated and Recomposed Matter: An Analysis of Luciano Berio's Thema (Homage to Joyce)]. Milan: RDM Records Edizioni Letterarie.

[55] See Chion, M. (1991). L'arte dei suoni fissati o La Musica Concretamente [The Art of Fixed Sounds, or Musique Concrète], cit. [It. trans. 2004, p. 98]: «The use of recording to compose was and remains the true event, which establishes a new type of compositional material, fixed sound, and a new mode of existence for the work.»

[56] Ibid., pp. 90–91. In particular, these «sound scenes» are constituted in close connection with «audible montage» (Ref. note 49).

[57] Delalande, F. (2006). Il paradigma elettroacustico [The Electroacoustic Paradigm]. In J.-J. Nattiez (Ed.), Enciclopedia della musica [Encyclopedia of Music] (Vol. III). Turin: Einaudi, pp. 393–394.

[58] This within a development that begins around the mid-nineteenth century (Chion, M., 1991, L'arte dei suoni fissati o La Musica Concretamente, cit., p. 43). See Daniele, R. (2010), Il dialogo con la materia disintegrata e ricomposta. Un’analisi di Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) di Luciano Berio, cit.

[59] Chion, M. (1994). Musique, médias et technologies [Music, Media, and Technologies]. Paris: Flammarion [It. trans. Musica, media e tecnologie, Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1996, p. 105]. The concept is in close relation to the listening disposition termed «reduced listening»: «Pierre Schaeffer dubbed "reduced listening" the listening directed toward the intrinsic qualities and forms of sound (...) and which considers sound—verbal, instrumental, anecdotal, or whatever—as an object of observation, rather than passing through it aimed at something else (the adjective "reduced" is taken from the phenomenological notion of reduction in Husserl)» (Chion, M., 1990, L’audiovisione. Suono e immagine nel cinema[Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen], cit., p. 22). – If phenomenology is «the science of being in the absolute sense», sound must be listened to without prejudice regarding its cause (Costa, V., 1999, L'estetica trascendentale fenomenologica. Sensibilità e rationalità nella filosofia di Husserl [Phenomenological Transcendental Aesthetics: Sensitivity and Rationality in Husserl's Philosophy]. Milan: Vita e Pensiero, p. 340). – Currently, the expression is used in light of the designation «electroacoustic» in reference to sound material as such, subject to processing and editing without concern for its source (see Schaeffer, P., 1966, Traité des objets musicaux [Treatise on Musical Objects], cit.; Chion, M., 1983, Guide des objets sonores. Pierre Schaeffer et la recherche musicale [Guide to Sound Objects: Pierre Schaeffer and Musical Research]. Paris: INA/Buchet-Chastel). Finally, it should be specified that the term «electroacoustic» itself appeared around 1955 to unify various techniques (concrète and electronic) under the same designation. «Nowadays, the expression encompasses all techniques in which sounds, whether of acoustic or synthetic origin, are processed and assembled in the form of an analog or digital signal, whether in a live concert setting or in the studio, and listened to through loudspeakers.» (see Delalande, F., 2006, Il paradigma elettroacustico [The Electroacoustic Paradigm], cit., p. 382; Daniele, R., 2010, Il dialogo con la materia disintegrata e ricomposta. Un'analisi di Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) di Luciano Berio, cit.).

[60] «The contract of a natural relationship referring to a pre-existing harmony between perceptions»; it is a matter of referring (to perceptions), rather than impressing (into the represented) the harmony between sound and image, which Chion consequently defines as «supposed and ideal» (Chion, M., 1990, L’audiovisione. Suono e immagine nel cinema[Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen], cit., p. 8, p. 38). Editor's Note (2026): Note how Michel Chion's notion of the «audiovisual contract», recalled here in the original 2010 draft to support an autonomous and non-mimetic «audiovisual dialectic», finds its definitive theoretical development in the notion of the para-acousmatic formalized in Part 2 of this study (Daniele, 2026). Where the 2010 essay identifies the action of music in «saturating» and «short-circuiting» the image, subsequent theorization clarifies that this short-circuit does not annul the audiovisual relationship, but breaks its mimetic and subordinating component, elevating the visual presence of the source to a visible envelope of an ontological tension and an autonomy of sound matter.

[61] Ibid., p. 159.

[62] Deleuze, G. (1985). L’immagine-tempo. Cinema 2 [Cinema 2: The Time-Image], cit., p. 190.

[63] «Toward the end of the 1920s, at the advent of sound which coincided with an extraordinary surge of aestheticism in silent cinema, comparisons between cinema and music were all the rage. For this reason, when sound arrived, the expression still in use today—"counterpoint"—was launched to designate the ideal in abstracto formula for sound cinema: one in which, far from duplicating each other, as was said, sound and image would form two parallel and freely linked chains, without unilateral dependence.» (Chion, M., 1990, L’audiovisione. Suono e immagine nel cinema [Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen], cit., p. 37. See Daniele, R., 2010, Ascenseur pour l'échafaud. Il luogo della musica nell'audiovisione, cit.). As is well known, the discussion on the use of this metaphor was initiated by Ejzenštejn, who in 1928 wrote: «The principal (and sole) method which has led cinema to such powerful effectiveness is montage. The perfection of montage as the principal instrument of influence is the axiom upon which the development of world cinema has been built (...) Only the contrapuntal use of sound in relation to the visual montage piece offers new possibilities for the development and perfection of montage. The first experimental work with sound must be directed along the line of its distinct non-coincidence with the visual images. This method of attack will cultivate the creation of a new orchestral counterpoint of visual and aural images.» [Ejzenštejn, S. M., Pudovkin, V., & Aleksandrov, G. (1928). Il futuro del sonoro. Dichiarazione – Budoščee zvukovoj fil’my. Zajavka [The Future of Sound: Statement], «Žizn’ iskusstva», n. 32; It. trans. in Ejzenštejn, S. M. (1986). La forma cinematografica [The Film Form]. Turin: Einaudi, pp. 269–270].

[64] Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K. (1998). Storia del cinema e dei film, Dalle origini al 1945 [History of Cinema and Film: From the Origins to 1945], cit., p. 143.

[65] See Ejzenštejn, S. M. Izbrannye proizvedenija v šesti tomach [Selected Works in Six Volumes] (Vol. II). Moscow: Iskusstvo [It. trans. Teoria generale del montaggio, Venice: Marsilio, 1985, pp. 142–159; Eng. trans. Towards a Theory of Montage, London: British Film Institute, 1991, pp. 10–18]. This definition is based on the Eisensteinian consideration whereby, as anticipated, in every composition two elements placed side by side through montage perform two functions: «representation» and the «generalization» of this representation in the image of movement. Where «generalization» consists in translating two separate phenomena (which together make no sense) into a generalized image: of unifying two still phases into an image of visual/sound movement and thus of sense/meaning.

[66] See Benjamin, W. (1936). L’opera d’arte nell’epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica [The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility], cit. [It. trans. 1966, p. 2].

[67] Metz, C. (1991). L’énonciation impersonnelle, ou le site du film [Impersonal Enunciation, or the Site of Film]. Paris: Méridiens Klincksieck [It. trans. L’enunciazione impersonale, o il luogo del film, Ed. A. Sainati, Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1995, p. 174]; see Daniele, R. (2010), Ascenseur pour l'échafaud. Il luogo della musica nell'audiovisione, cit.

[68] «Just as in Western music there are what are called avoided cadences (that is, cadences that one manages through melodic inflection and harmonic progression to anticipate before suddenly evading them), so in the audiovisual chain there are avoided points of synchronization, which are sometimes more effective than those that actually occur. Why? Because their construction is delegated to the spectator's mind.» (Chion, M., 1990, L’audiovisione. Suono e immagine nel cinema[Eng. trans. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, trans. C. Gorbman, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994, p. 58]).

[69] Daniele, R. (2010). Ascenseur pour l'échafaud. Il luogo della musica nell'audiovisione, cit.

[70] «The pure optical and sound situation (description) is an actual image that, instead of being extended into movement, links up with a virtual image with which it forms a circuit. The problem is knowing more precisely what is suited to play the role of a virtual image. At first, what Bergson calls a "recollection-image" seems to possess the required qualities (...) With recollection-images, a whole new sense of subjectivity appears (...) such as to bring us individually back to perception, instead of extending it into generic movement.» [See Deleuze, G. (1985), L’immagine-tempo. Cinema 2 [Eng. trans. Cinema 2: The Time-Image, trans. H. Tomlinson & R. Galeta, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989, pp. 47–48]; Bergson, H. (1896), Matière et mémoire. Essai sur la relation du corps à l’esprit [Eng. trans. Matter and Memory, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1911]; Daniele, R. (2010), Ascenseur pour l'échafaud. Il luogo della musica nell'audiovisione, cit.].

[71] Deleuze, G. (1985). L’immagine-tempo. Cinema 2 [Cinema 2: The Time-Image], cit., p. 59.

[72] Chion, M. (1990). L’audiovisione. Suono e immagine nel cinema [Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen], cit., p. 160.

[73] Metz, C. (1991). L’enunciazione impersonale, o il luogo del film [Impersonal Enunciation, or the Site of Film], cit. [It. trans. 1995, p. 164].

[74] Ibid., pp. 45–46.

[75] In the section «Voice-Subject and Kindred Sounds», Metz «assimilates certain music and certain noises to the voice-subject, by virtue of analogies that are partial and real at the same time». He adopts «Michel Chion's term "voice-subject", to designate the off-screen voice of the character who narrates» and which «by virtue of its invisibility» is a diegetic voice that «ceaselessly tends to tower over the diegesis, staying partly outside of it» (Ibid., pp. 157–162). At times, music performs a similar operation but in reverse: «Logically, it remains extradiegetic, but in the affective and actual reality of reception and memory, it assumes something quasi-diegetic.» (Ibid., p. 174).

[76] Chion, M. (1990). L’audiovisione. Suono e immagine nel cinema [Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen], cit., pp. 73–74. Pit music «is that which accompanies the image from an off-screen position, outside the time and place of the action. This term refers to the orchestra pit of classical opera.» Screen music is «on the contrary, that which emanates from a source situated directly or indirectly within the place and time of the action, even if this source is a radio or an off-screen musician.»

List of Figures

Fig. 1: Francesco Bossi (2010). Portrait of the musician and composer. Source: Kindly granted by the Bossi Estate.

Fig. 2: Riccardo Sinigaglia Ensemble (2026). Composition and visual architecture for the release The Echoes of Usher. Source: Graphic design by RDM Records.

Fig. 3: La Chute de la Maison Usher (1928), directed by Jean Epstein. Still extracted from the sequence of Lady Madeline's funeral procession (00:36:12). Source: Collection Cinémathèque française / MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York).

Fig. 4: La Chute de la Maison Usher (1928), directed by Jean Epstein. Perspective view of the monumental hall of the Usher home. Source: MoMA (Museum of Modern Art, New York).

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4. Works, Writings, and Publications by the Author (Romina Daniele)

• Daniele, Romina (2010a). «Il dialogo con la materia disintegrata e ricomposta», un'analisi di Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) di Luciano Berio. Milano: RDM Records Edizioni Letterarie.

• Daniele, Romina (2010). Sul rapporto tra audio e immagine nell'esperienza dal vivo del 17 Luglio 2010 in cui il concerto coincide con la proiezione del film La chute de la Maison Usher (Jean Epstein, France, 1928). Milano [originally published on rominadaniele.com and reprinted here in full in Part 3].

• Daniele, Romina (2010). Ascenseur pour l'échafaud: il luogo della musica nell'audiovisione. Milano: RDM Records Edizioni Letterarie.

• Daniele, Romina (2015). Spannung, Triple CD and monograph essay included in the booklet. Milano: RDM Records.

• Daniele, Romina (2026). The Resonance of the «Déjà-Là»: Correspondences, Inversions, and Material Frictions Between Chion’s Impossible History and the «Elettroacoustic Imperative». ElectroAcoustics Magazine, 2026 Series, Art. 2026.05.en. (Selected for Arts & Technologies Print Edition). DOI: Pre-assigned (eam.2026.05.en). Available at: https://rdmrecords.com/the-resonance-of-the-deja-electroacoustic

• Daniele, Romina (2026). Spatialization as an Ontological Act: The Spatial Lutherie of Eraldo Bocca and the Resistance of Matter. ElectroAcoustics Magazine, 2026 Series, Art. 2026.06.en. (Selected for Arts & Technologies Print Edition). DOI: Pre-assigned (eam.2026.06.en). Available at: https://rdmrecords.com/spatialization-as-an-ontological-act (Part III – The «Elettroacoustic Imperative» and the Status of the "Para-Acousmatic").

• Daniele, Romina (forthcoming). «La Scrittura e il Supporto. Ulteriori indagini intorno all'atto compositivo in Thema (Omaggio a Joyce)». ElectroAcoustics Magazine. Miami: RDM Records.

• Daniele, Romina (in final draft). Voce Sola, Essay Around the Vocal Discourse. Milano-Miami: RDM Records.

5. Archival Documents, Manifestos, and Primary Sources (Media & Performative)

• RDM Records Editorial Team & ElectroAcoustics Board (2026). Research Around Sound and Technologies. Arts & Technologies Manifesto. ElectroAcoustics Magazine, 2026 Series, Art. 2026.01.en. (Selected for Arts & Technologies Print Edition). DOI: Pre-assigned (eam.2026.01.en). Available at: https://rdmrecords.com/arts-and-technologies

• RDM Records Editorial Team (2026). New Release: The Echoes Of Usher [News/Official Release]. Milano-Miami: RDM Records. https://rdmrecords.com/it/nuova-uscita-the-echoes-of-usher

• Sinigaglia, Riccardo (2011). Dichiarazione sull'attività di sonorizzazione ed improvvisazione elettroacustica. In Davide Vanotti (Ed.), article for the Asilo Bianco association, January 2011 [cited in R. Daniele, Voce Sola, Ch. II].

How to Cite this Essay

APA 7th Edition: Daniele, Romina (2026). Audiovisual Short-Circuit: Sound, Image, and Time from Epstein to the Digital Era. ElectroAcoustics Magazine, 2026 Series, Art. 2026.07.en. (Selected for Arts & Technologies Print Edition). DOI: Pre-assigned (eam.2026.07.en). Available at:

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