The sci-fi audio novel Life Chronicles of Dorothea Ïesj S.P.U. follows the story of researcher Dorothea Ïesj as she extracts and smuggles sound finds from the past. The world she lives in is inspired by pseudo-scientific theories such as archaeoacoustics (developed in the 19th century at the same time as the invention and development of recording technologies) which suggested the possibility of tracing acoustic phenomena of the past that remained “engraved” in matter.
In our world, extracting sounds is currently impossible, but plausible and this hypothesis prompts reflection on its consequences in terms of social control and monitoring and these reflections bring to the surface questions about the political dimension of sound in public space.

The first episode of this podcast reflects on some of those questions and on how listening practices may be used as tools for critical thinking and for the tuning and re-tuning of power dynamics.

We talked about it with Reem Shadid, Juliette Volcler, Giada Dalla Bontà and Brandon LaBelle reflecting on how sound may shape the perception of the world we live in and how, through its complexities, questions of ethics and power do emerge.