Building Worlds Together with Sound and Music : Imagination as an Active Engagement between Ourselves

Abstract

By conforming to the enactive approach to human cognition, and by adopting the Tia DeNora’s concept of human–music interaction as an “in-action” perspective, Kai Tuuri and Henna-Riikka Peltola explore socially extended imagining with sounds and music. This is done through a question of how “shared places” of imagining with sound are established and maintained. Defining the activity of imagining as an essentially dynamic and generative process that takes place in a social reality, the authors propose that the processes of imagining are not only individual but also become exhibited and jointly engaged in social dialogues as well. By first discussing the theoretical foundations of this shared imagining with sound, then by examining two case examples, the authors focus on the ways that imagination—as a joint active engagement—becomes shared in an interaction between individuals.