Keynote
“The Ordering of Sounds. The Homogenization of Listening in the Age Of Globalized Soundscapes”
Sabine Breitsameter (Professor for Sound and Mediaculture, Hochschule Darmstadt/Soundscape- and Environmental Media Lab)
During the last two to three decades, it has become more and more difficult to distinguish the big cities on our planet from one another by their acoustic appearance. The majority of them have experienced a significant change of soundscapes, which has resulted in an ongoing assimilation of their sonic environments, and a loss of their acoustic identities.
The keynote will explore how this loss of auditory diversity can be perceived. It will identify parameters of assimilation and investigate reasons for this development. What sounds have arisen instead and why? What is responsible for the disappearance and/or transition to sounds and sonic experiences?
In addition, the talk will examine the ways in which listening occurs, as shaped by habits and media, and as they are closely related to the basic laws, priorities, deficiencies, and power relationships within society. What are the driving influences that shape an ordering of sounds within the perceptual system, claiming at the same time that this is a pre-stabilized, “naturally” given sonic system, to which we have to adapt our listening abilities?
The argument assumes that auditory phenomena, their methods of listening, as well as the auditory sense itself are appropriated by prevalent societal and political conditions. What do these methods of listening suggest and what does the aural appropriation stand for? What do they reveal about our societal systems, can such an "ordering of sounds" be changed, and why should it be changed at all?
