18.09

What do puppets hear? 

The uncanny other world of the imagined consciousness of puppets
By Matt Smith & Paul J. Rogers

Abstract

An audio paper exploring the uncanny other world of the imagined consciousness of puppets. This sonic exploration of materialism and objects explores the sonority of puppets as an interface and space that explores sound from a novel non-human perspective. We will explore the relationships between human and puppet and the sounds of these interactions along with the delocalized anamnesis of historical puppet noises. This practice research explores narrative semiotics in the non-dialogue sound of puppetry and the expression in non-words and noise from the puppet perspective – the sound of a hand inside me, on me, holding me, touching me, manipulating me. How does the puppeteer talk to the puppet, how do they talk for the puppet, how does the puppet talk to others and what internal voice does the puppet have? Based on recordings from within a puppets body and the vocal of Matt Smith including found recordings of puppet voices and audio ephemera. The voice, though seemingly giving a particular marker of gender, is not fixed in a puppet and so potentially transgresses notions of identity and binaries. This ambiguity in the audio paper is intentional.

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Keywords

Puppet
Uncanny
Materialism
Audio ephemera
More-than-human 

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18. September 2025
https://doi.org/10.48233/53
Sound and the More-Than-Human Worlds