Navigating 'feel': When hands touch sound effects

Holding and moving objects to create a sound effect requires a performer to navigate by feel, directing their listening from the solid (dried peas on a drumhead) to the imaginary (sea waves). The illusory properties of sound have long been exploited by sound effects performers for the purposes of Foley, silent cinema and theatre. While sound may provoke the imagination or emotional response of the audience, it also does its affective work on the performer operating the effect. In the moment of practice itself, sound binds to the object being manipulated, blurring the known boundaries of its physical properties. The Foley artist crosses a threshold between the tactility of the material and the dissolved representations of the intangible, as the sound itself feels like it is the material being manipulated. Simple hand actions become a gateway to the imaginary. This article considers the affective experience of creative bodily-guided soundmaking, and how the successful operation of a sound effect requires the performer to deliberately navigate between modes of listening, attuning their movements and engaging with a perceptual space where things, while making sound, are no longer what they seem to be. Focusing on sound effects beyond the screen allows for an exploration of the aesthetic, dramatic and syncretic in real-world experiences of sound and movement.