The polyphonies which weave the city
Résumé
How many kinds of experiences shape the city? Voices, sound sources, moving and dynamic objects weave the city, being a part of it and determining its content. But how to apprehend this fabric in research activities?
Poetically, we can say that sonic space is woven by multiple voices. They do not regard only to speech. Even though language reveals a diversity of cultures, such voices also come from our daily activities, from music, traffic, and sound devices. As Thibaud (2017, p. 226) once argued, “we are thus immersed in a world of sound of which we take part and which everyone contributes to, producing through their daily activities and actions”. Sound also plays a significant role in the way we act upon the cities and how we perceive it.
The sound itself covers and reveals, at the same time, everyday experiences. Sonic space produces a polyphony which may or may not be masked, may or may not be noticed. It covers a number of relations when listening becomes a habitual act. If we are immersed in it, it is hard to reveal what is beneath. To defamiliarize may be an answer for it: by estrangement, we may ask ourselves what is beneath the ordinary sounds that surround us.
These are some of the matters discussed in this interview between Luciana Santos Roça and Jean-Paul Thibaud. The attentive look of the researcher Jean-Paul Thibaud conducts us through these voices, proposing a critical perspective on the privatization of sound space and the use of sound as a commodity.
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