Towards a “New” Sonic Ecology, Lecture by Marcel Cobussen

In his inaugural lecture as as professor in Auditory Culture at the University of Leiden, Marcel Cobussen, researcher, founder of the Journal of Sonic Studies and recently co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Sounding Art, exposed a fascinating idea around “a new sonic ecology”, addressing some issues on environmental sound thinking, listening processes, acoustemology, sound studies, artistic research, among other related topics.

“Towards a new sonic ecology” should be heard as a proposal to alternative ways of interaction between the environment, the human body and sound, a proposal to listen and react differently to our sonic milieu as well as a suggestion to reevaluate and perhaps transform this milieu. At the same time the title implies a critical reflection on the work already accomplished by many sound studies scholars before me. Without them this text would not have been possible, although I simultaneously diverge from their acoustemological paths.

A PDF with the whole lecture is available for download at Cobussen’s site.

Contents:

1. Introduction – Explaining the Title
2. Beyond Aesthetics
3. Letting the Sonic Speak
4. The Sonic City
5. Atmospheres
6. Auditory Culture and Artistic Research
7. Towards a (New) Sonic Ecology at Leiden University
8. Epilogue – Affective Politics

As a bonus, check out this nice lecture professor Cobussen gave a couple of years ago on the idea of artistic research, specially on music and sound.