And Another Thing I Heard eBook

The world is full of sound. This book opens your ears to it.

Most of us hear without truly listening. But what is genuine listening? And Another Thing I Heard sets out to open your ears. Composer, artistic researcher and educator Esther Venrooij offers a rich map of the various ways we engage with sound: how it reaches the body before the mind, how it reveals space, and how it carries meaning and memory. Drawing on music, film, philosophy and fieldwork, the book moves from the reverberation of a mosque – where sound and belief are inseparable – to the echo of a parking garage, to Erich Fromm on listening as a form of love, to Spike Jonze’s Her and the intimacy of a disembodied voice, and to Shoshana Zuboff’s concept of surveillance capitalism. The book combines theoretic reflection with hands-on exercises for artists, architects, musicians, performers, artistic researchers, educators, and anyone else who is interested in genuinely listening. Listening, as it turns out, is not a background activity. It is how we meet the world.