The Bruiteur: noise and listening in performance

This PhD thesis focuses on the live performance of noise through the figure of the Bruiteur. The Bruiteur as the live sound/noise operator in performance settings can provide new insights into understanding noise and listening in performance and the "everyday." Drawing on my background in live noise performance, this thesis is guided by the research question: How might a revised conception of the Bruiteur impact contemporary understandings of noise and listening in live performance? As the embodiment of noise in live performance, the Bruiteur offers a unique lens to examine noise and listening that extends well beyond the Bruiteur's traditional home in theatre histories and archives. Beginning with a vignette that highlights my motivation for this interdisciplinary exploration, I map an intermedial genealogy of live noisemaking in the media of theatre, film and music through the figure of the Bruiteur as more than just a "noisemaker." Using Foucault's genealogical method to expose and interrogate critical disjunctions between Bruiteurs across media and histories, this thesis challenges the Bruiteur's noise-centred, often negative definitions. Rather, I argue for the centrality of listening to historical and contemporary instances of performed Bruitage. By exploring critical case studies of the Bruiteur in past and present performance using Goffman's dramaturgical model this thesis also develops the Bruiteur from a historical analogue to a functional analogy capable of deployment in both performed and performative everyday instances where issues of noise and listening persistently emerge. Challenging and unsettling contemporary binaries of sound/noise, audition/vision and listening/hearing, the Bruiteur provides a disruptive counter to these ongoing arguments and a key contribution to live performance and sound studies.