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Hylo Narrans: Echoes of Material Marronage - cover image

Copyright

Kevin Toksöz Fairbairn

Published On

2025-10-22

ISBN

Paperback978-1-80511-643-1
Hardback978-1-80511-644-8
PDF978-1-80511-645-5
HTML978-1-80511-647-9
EPUB978-1-80511-646-2

Language

  • English

Print Length

272 pages (xviii+254)

Dimensions

Paperback156 x 19 x 234 mm(6.14" x 0.75" x 9.21")
Hardback156 x 22 x 234 mm(6.14" x 0.87" x 9.21")

Weight

Paperback522g (18.41oz)
Hardback698g (24.62oz)

Media

Illustrations30
Videos8
Audio8

THEMA

  • ABA
  • TTA
  • JBCC
  • QDHR5

BISAC

  • ART060000
  • PHI018000
  • SOC026030
  • TEC001000

Keywords

  • Acoustic Agency
  • Experimental Instrumentation
  • Material Sonicity
  • Hylo Narrans
  • Sonic Marronage
  • Intermaterial Listening

Hylo Narrans

Echoes of Material Marronage

This book explores the acoustic agency of brass as a vital medium through which histories of extraction, resistance, and collective creativity resonate. Blending metalwork, experimental instrument-building, and philosophical inquiry, the book listens closely to brass not just as material, but as storyteller—what the author calls hylo narrans, echoing Sylvia Wynter’s invocation of homo narrans. Grounded in their practice spanning artisanal craftsmanship and industrial labor, the author examines how materials respond, resist, and reshape meaning within the workshop, the concert hall, and the broader social fabric. By introducing chimeracords—hybrid sound objects forged from factory detritus—and their affordance for sonic experimentation, 'Hylo Narrans' challenges Western narratives of purity, utility, and control, inviting readers to consider alternative storylines posed by materials-in-flight.

Weaving theories of marronage through situated acoustic knowledge, this book is essential reading for those working at the intersection of sound, matter, and community. It speaks to experimental musicians, sound artists, artistic researchers, and theorists interested in how sonic materiality relates to social space, cultural memory, and communal wellbeing. With a deep commitment to sonic collectivity and intermaterial dialogue, this volume reimagines the workshop as a site of resistance, resonance, and relational creativity.

Additional Resources

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text for non-commercial purposes of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information:

Kevin Toksöz Fairbairn, Hylo Narrans: Echoes of Material Marronage. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2025, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0476

The audio and video recordings are also available on the OBP Zenodo Community: https://zenodo.org/communities/openbookpublishers/records

[audio]Audio Recording 1 Thermoform. Recording by author (2024).
[audio]Audio Recording 2 Funeous. Recording by author (2025).
[audio]Audio Recording 3 Verdigris. Recording by author (2024).
[audio]Audio Recording 4 Attending. Recording by author (2024).
[audio]Audio Recording 5 Balya. Recording by author (2024).
[audio]Audio Recording 6 Housecall. Recording by author (2024).
[audio]Audio Recording 7 Ileum. Recording by author (2025).
[audio]Audio Recording 8 Echoes. Recording by Curtis Rumrill (2024).
[video]Video Recording 1 Thermoform. Recording by author (2024).
[video]Video Recording 2 Funeous. Recording by Siamak Anvari (2025).
[video]Video Recording 3 Verdigris. Recording by author (2024).
[video]Video Recording 4 Attending. Recording by author (2024).
[video]Video Recording 5 Balya. Recording by author (2024).
[video]Video Recording 6 Housecall. Recording by author (2024).
[video]Video Recording 7 Ileum. Recording by author (2025).
[video]Video Recording 8 Echoes. Recording by author (2024).
[document]EPUB Accessibility Report

Contents

Introduction

(pp. 1–22)
  • Kevin Toksöz Fairbairn

1. Monochord

(pp. 23–54)
  • Kevin Toksöz Fairbairn

2. Place-Thought

(pp. 55–92)
  • Kevin Toksöz Fairbairn

3. Extrusion

(pp. 93–130)
  • Kevin Toksöz Fairbairn

4. Purity

(pp. 131–164)
  • Kevin Toksöz Fairbairn

5. Hylo Narrans

(pp. 165–204)
  • Kevin Toksöz Fairbairn

6. Marronage

(pp. 205–234)
  • Kevin Toksöz Fairbairn

Contributors

Kevin Toksöz Fairbairn

(author)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4447-1192

Kevin Toksöz Fairbairn is a sound artist and musician working around the edges of installation, improvisation, composition, and craftsmanship. He publishes about sound studies, artistic research, and musicology, and has given masterclasses and lectures throughout Europe, Asia, and North America. He is an accomplished instrument builder and performs on a variety of instruments of his own design and construction, with which he appears regularly throughout Europe and worldwide. He is a passionate exponent for the values of collaboration and community in artistic production and works regularly with many different creative partners and groups, championing both young and emerging composers and artists as well as working alongside established ensembles including Klangforum Wien, Talea Ensemble, and Collegium Novum Zürich. He received his PhD in artistic research from Leiden University in 2020, where his dissertation on the performance practice of experimental music notations received special distinction. His monograph, dis/cord: Thinking Sound through Agential Realism, was published by punctum books in 2022.