청각적 불안의 사운드디자인 연구: 영화 <Contagion>과 <Midnight Express> 비교분석

The Sound Design of Auditory Anxiety: A Comparative Analysis of Contagion and Midnight Express

This study proposes “Sonicxiety” as a conceptual framework for understanding how film sound design constructs, amplifies, and transmits affective anxiety. While existing scholarship on film sound has predominantly emphasized visual‑centric narrative functions or genre‑specific classifications, there remains a lack of analytical models that foreground how auditory cues independently shape emotional and sensory experience. Sonicxiety responds to this gap by focusing on three core dimensions of anxiety‑inducing sound design—aural dominance, spatial density, and affective directionality—to articulate how sound operates as a primary driver of anxious affect. Unlike previous approaches which often remain within genre‑based or narrative‑driven classifications, Sonicxiety offers a multidimensional, sound‑centered framework for examining the affective mechanics of anxiety. To examine this framework in practice, the study conducts a comparative analysis of two films: Contagion (2011) and Midnight Express (1978). It explores how sonic elements such as coughing, droning tones, and silence contribute to affective contagion, thereby regulating and infecting the emotional states of the audience. The study identifies key mechanisms in the sonic articulation of anxiety, including the inversion of audiovisual hierarchy, the interplay between minimized visual input and intensified auditory cues, and the construction of claustrophobic acoustic spaces. Sonicxiety functions not only as a strategy for emotional induction but also as a structural and affective framework through which anxiety is designed and transmitted. This model offers broad applicability beyond cinema, extending to games, immersive media, and sound art. The study positions Sonicxiety as a tool for interdisciplinary inquiry, connecting fields such as affective aesthetics, sensory culture studies, and audio-based media criticism.