Situated Sonic Listening and Ecological Gesture: The Case of Chronotopes, micro-récits urbains

Abstract

Based on the research-creation project Chronotope. Récits d’Arras, presented during the Appel d’air Biennale (2024), this article examines how sonic listening, grounded in a specific territory, can become both an ecological gesture and a tool for the sensitive understanding of the world. To do so, the article first considers how this artistic practice is situated within a lineage of artistic approaches such as those of Hildegard Westerkamp, Cilia Erens, Teri Rueb, and Stéphane Marin, all of whom use listening as a way of inhabiting spaces differently.

Secondly, we describe and analyze the different stages in the production of the sound walk Chronotope, which invites participants to slow down, observe, and record their environment — from experiences of listening, recording, and notation while walking to situated and geolocated experiences. This leads us to connect the practice with theoretical reflections on the soundscape (R. Murray Schafer) and sonic ecosophy (Roberto Barbanti). Far from being a mere representational tool, sound becomes in these practices an embodied and relational experience, involving an ecological stance grounded in observation, slowness, and sensitivity. We therefore examine how these artistic approaches contribute to a reconfiguration of the relationship between humans, environments, and living beings by making listening an act of knowledge, care, and resistance in the face of the contemporary ecological crisis.