Sound Design: A Phenomenarchaeology

This thesis investigates the relationship between theatrical sound designer and theatre audience through a metaphor of archaeology. It examines the complex temporalities of sound and theatre as interventions in the past, present and future of performance itself, through Alain Badiou’s concept of the theatre-idea as movement of thought from eternity to time. The thesis interrogates the practice and philosophy of sound design, finding a shared resonance that emerges from the interaction of designer and audience that is recovered as archaeological trace: all of the orders of information that surround the work of performance.