The Sound of Democracy Dying: Listening Sessions

This event is one of five on the theme, and the purpose of the “listening sessions” is to bring together artists and researchers from different traditions to share and reflect on audio work from their varied projects that touch on threats and challenges to democracy from the perspective of sound.

The event will include members of the Sound Environment Centre’s researcher network, including Eleni-Ira Panourgia and Sanne Krogh Groth, plus external guests, including the cultural historian, curator and DJ Ellie Armon Azoulay from Durham University, UK. It is also open to the public and to researchers from any and all traditions, who may contribute to the discussion or attend in a purely listening capacity. 

The event is part of the series What is the sound of democracy dying?

Through a series of events this September, the Sound Environment Centre explores the changing sounds that shape and are shaped by political life: from protest, applause, and public debate to podcasts, sonic “slopaganda”, AI-generated audio deepfakes, and new technologies and cultures of listening. As media landscapes shift and new forms of sonic influence emerge, the series asks how sound can both sustain democracy and contribute to its erosion. 

Drawing on diverse historical and contemporary cases, from Malmö's municipal noise policies to sonic warfare in Gaza, and exploring how sound functions as a tool of domination and as a crucial part of populist and antidemocratic politics, these events invite audiences to listen differently to the changing soundscape of democracy.

PROGRAM

3/9
The Soundscape of Genocide in Gaza: Sonic warfare, Sound memory and Music as Resistance, lunch lecture by Ellie Armon Azoulay. Read more about the lunch lecture here.

The Sound of Democracy Dying: Listening Sessions, event at Inter Arts Center in Malmö

4/9
Protest Music Workshop at Youth Takeover Lund, led by Ellie Armon Azoulay and Naoko Takayanagi. Read more about the music workshop here.

24/9
Seminar with Kate Lacey, author of Listening Publics: The Politics and Experience of Listening in the Media Age

25-26/9
Sonic Citizens, event at Malmö’s Cultural Sound Zone. Read more about the event here. 

Visit the Sound Environment Centre for more information.