Listening to Places

Listening to Places: exercises towards environmental composition is a collection of 36 practical exercises designed to enhance appreciation of our nuanced and fascinating auditory environment. It starts by considering how we might categorise sounds (earth, human, animal, technological). Exercises focus attention on sonic characteristics – distance, amplitude, frequency, repetition, motion, location – before considering concepts such as silence, noise, and the place of audition within an integrated sensorium. The goal is to bring attention to listening as a self-reflexive activity, to enhance delight in the sounds arround us, and to foreground how places exist as accumulations of social activities and experience.

The book was launched 23 July 2022 at Void Gallery, Derry, as the conclusion of David Beattie’s Slowtime project. David provides a foreword to the book, placing it within the context of our role in the formation of places.

The first edition has now sold out.