Sound ecologies: Recording and listening practices between research, creation and ethical commitment

2025-03-18

Thematic issue of the journal Musiques: Recherches interdisciplinaires edited by Noémie Favennec-Brun and Pierrick Lefranc.

During the 1970s, Murray Schafer's acoustic ecology strengthened the connection between sound recording practices and ecological engagement around the notion of "soundscape" (Schafer et al. 2010). He was one of the first to ask this essential question: how does sound shape our perception of the world and our relationship with the environment?

Today, a growing diversity of practitioners is exploring field recording as a tool for research, creation, and interaction with the environment (Solomos 2025). This dynamic is a continuation of the democratization of field recording practices, which began in the 1960s with the advent of portable recorders and has grown in recent years (Sterne and Boidy 2015). Currently, in various disciplinary fields, we are seeing an increasing use of recording and listening practices that, although designated by different terms—audionaturalism, field recording, acousmatics, sound ethnography, sound walk, research-creation, bioacoustics, soundscape, phonography, sound mapping, etc.—share a "family resemblance" (Wittgenstein 1996).

What can be grouped under the term "sound practices" (Louro et al. 2020) produces objects—soundscape, podcast, sound ethnography, electroacoustic creation, sound nap, etc.—that are now established as true "boundary works" (Aït-Touati 2012; Fourmentraux 2019), oscillating between technique and perception, between scientific research and artistic creation, between document and sonic expression. It therefore seems interesting to explore Murray Schafer's initial question further by combining the perspectives of artists and researchers.

  • How does the practice of the same recording and listening activity in different contexts of enunciation or capture influence the meaning and reception of sound recordings?
  • How do recording and listening shape our way of thinking and perceiving the world?
  • How do recordings modify the relationship between ecology(ies), society, and artistic creation?
  • What impact do technical devices (microphones, recorders) have on the evolution of these different disciplines?

This issue examines how the diversity of sound practices, each in its own way, opens the way to renewed awareness and concrete actions at the interface of art, science, and society. In the face of current ecological challenges, how can listening and sound recording awaken new forms of engagement and contribute to the evolution of scientific and artistic disciplines?

Proposed thematic areas

  1. Sound ecology and environmental issues
    Preservation of acoustic landscapes or listening as a tool for ecological awareness and action: What role can environmental sound recording play in documenting, analyzing, and taking action in the face of phenomena such as noise pollution? More broadly, how does it contribute to shaping our relationship with the environment, between looking "at" and "in" the landscape (Ingold 2022).
  2. Sound hunting and stalking: What analogy?
    From traditional hunting to sound stalking, imitating, observing, understanding: What is the ethical scope of recording and listening as activities?
  3. Listening experiences and the transformation of perception
    The soundscape as a mode of narration or interpretation of the world: How do these experiences transform our relationship with the world and our aesthetic or ecological commitment? What influence do listening contexts and listeners' intentions have on the perception and reception of soundscapes?

Ultimate Objective

The objective of this issue is to create a space for dialogue and reflection bringing together artists, researchers, naturalists, anthropologists, philosophers, and others. It is intended as a laboratory of ideas on how sound and listening influence our representations of life, our relationship with the environment, and our aesthetic and political commitments.

Call for contribution

We welcome contributions in English and French. Proposals should include an abstract (300 words), as well as the authors' names, affiliations, and a short biography (150 words). Proposals should be sent to the guest editors by April 20, 2025, at revueecologiessonores@gmail.com.

Responses will be provided by May 6, 2025. Complete manuscripts must be submitted by September 28, 2025, via the journal's website: https://revues.ulaval.ca/ojs/index.php/musiques/about/submissions.

Bibliography

Aït-Touati, Frédérique. 2012. « Frontières, territoires, passages : pour une cartographie des savoirs ». Acta Fabula 13 (4). https://doi.org/10.58282/acta.6958.

Fourmentraux, Jean-Paul. 2019. « OEuvres frontières : art, science, technologie ». antiAtlas Journal 3. :
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Louro, Ivo, Margarida Mendes, Daniel Paiva, et Iñigo Sánchez-Fuarros. 2020. « A Sonic Anthropocene. Sound
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Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1996. Le cahier bleu et Le cahier brun. Bibliothèque de philosophie. Paris : Gallimard.