Russell Hunting: The Emergence of the Soundscape

Despite mentions of his name in the literature of early phonography, history fails to recognise Russell Hunting's significant impact on the acoustic recording era (1877 to 1925). Hunting broke from popular performance practices and initiated an aesthetic without a former precedent; this is the twentieth-century notion of the soundscape. Russell Hunting's career trajectory parallels the industry growth of the phonograph as a media technology. He first experimented as a performer, incorporating the vaudeville practices of his time with the new technology. In his later work, Hunting expanded the course of sound recording's history by innovating the aesthetic of the soundscape, which included extended passages of non-diegetic mimetic sound. His arrival at this sonic form – well in advance of its coinage – partnered with his politic in consumer accessibility contributed to the concurrent rise of cinematic explorations.