12th International FLK Symposium on Soundscape: Ways of Listening
CATANIA | September 24 – 27 | 2025
Listening refers to a multiplicity of ways of participation, physical, emotional, cognitive; it defines our relationship with things, with bodies, with the world, describes the variety of relationships invisible to the eye, in which I may not see what I hear: these are the countless mixtures between sound and sense. Indeed, when referring to communication that passes through the channels of hearing (not just auricular), we usually question what is being listened to, the relationships between the objects of the sound environment, what we perceive and what the contents of our perception are, but we rarely stop to consider how we listen.
Drawing on a famous distinction by Roland Barthes1, between the physiological function of hearing and the psychological function of listening, modes, habits, and attitudes of the species, community, and personal history are inserted. The ways of listening become multiple. Knowledge influences perceptions, including listening: listening with prior knowledge is not the same as listening without prior knowledge. Hence a series of questions: do we only hear what we listen to? How is knowledge consolidated through listening? Conversely, how can listening challenge knowledge and habits, generating new knowledge and new habits? “We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are” (Anaïs Nin): does the same apply to hearing and listening?