Sharawadji

The Sharawadji effect is an aesthetic effect which characterises the sensation of plenitude sometimes created by the contemplation of a complex soundscape whose beauty is unexplainable. This exotic term, which travellers introduced to Europe in the 17th Century from their journeys to China, designates the beauty that comes about without perceiving the order or economy of the object in question. The effect comes about as a surprise and will carry you elsewhere, beyond strict representation - out of context. In this brutal confusion, the senses get lost. A beautiful Sharawadji plays with the rules of composition, manipulates them and awakens a feeling of pleasure through perceptual confusion.Whether in a dreamlike or anxious state, we are sometimes completely deaf to the environment. However while on a walk or on a journey, our spirit can combine availability, attention, perspicacity and therefore become receptive to new things, including sonic fantasy.The beautiful Sharawadji affirms itself in contrast with the banality from which it originates. Sharawadji sounds, as such, belong to everyday life or to known musical registers. They only become Sharawadji by decontextualisation, by a rupture of the senses. The sonic matter that encourages the Sharawadji effect is up to the appreciation of each individual, in a given context, however the soundscape, and in particular urban soundscapes can, as a result of their unpredictability and diversity, favour it. The sonic wealth of nature is also susceptible of creating the Sharawadji effect.

-- Jean-François Augoyard and Henry Torgue, À l'écoute de l'environnement, répertoire des effets sonores (a dictionary of sound effects) , 1995 (translated by Claude Schryer)