The Imagined Sounds of Outer Space

Abstract

This essay explores how the idea of the ‘sounds of space’ has been articulated in popular culture since the late nineteenth century through the early years of the Space Age. The primary focus is on sound and music in science-fiction films from Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the United States, and the four main topic areas are the sounds of signals from space, the sounds of outer-space technology, the sounds of ‘heavenly bodies,’ and the sounds/music associated with space travel. Framing this central portion of the essay, however, is a discussion of ‘space music’ by various composers for whom writing for the cinema was perhaps one of the furthest things from their minds. The essay argues that, in terms of depictions of weightlessness, perhaps certain works by composers Arnold Schoenberg and Edgard Varèse, and by the rock groups Popol Vuh and Tangerine Dream, have something in common with the music of sci-fi cinema.