The Phonograph as a Non-Philosophical Machine: From Representation to the Reproduction of the Unimaginable Real

By addressing the sound recording
technology’s capabilities in catching its
objects, this article presents a materialist
theoretical ground, connecting François
Laruelle’s understanding of immanence in his
non-philosophy to Friedrich Kittler’s technomaterialism that employs three fundamental
recording technologies. As Kittler inquires in
his book Gramophone, Film, Typewriter in depth,
the phonograph is the only recording
technology that is able to catch its object as it is,
without transferring it into any semiotic
system that is essentially different from it. It is
the sound recording technology’s ability that
distinguishes it from the other two recording
technologies and the very reason to design a
materialist approach to sonic thinking.
Ultimately, the theoretical inquiries given by a
non-philosopher and a media theorist will give
us a new base for sonic thinking and pave the
way for various possibilities to approach the
reality of sounds and their relationship with
technology. The article suggests that nonphilosophy finds its very performance in the
practice of the phonograph.