Sounds different : listening to the city

This paper examines how tuning the ear towards modern auditory experience has opened up innovative and nuanced ways of understanding the experience of technological modernity in the city. Divided into two sections, the paper first considers a range of historical and cultural studies of sound and listening in the city, addressing the way sound has been used to undo the ‘spell of objectification’ and distanciation associated with a visual enframing of the world. The rise of an auditory sensibility has helped to underline the co-constitutive nature of urban forms, spatial practices and media technologies as being central to the historical experience of urban modernisation. The second section moves on to consider contemporary mediated listening practices which are treated in relation to public urban spaces, with a particular focus on the use of smartphones. Situating mobile listening practices within histories of sound technology in the city, the paper considers the curated listening spaces created by contemporary sound artists and practitioners as new pathways for sense-making within the city-screens of today’s digitally mediated cities.