The Aesthetics of Listening: Sensory, Playful and Poetic Dialogues with the City

Abstract

The aim of this article is to claim the creative potential of listening to sounds in urban planning and architecture as well as in other artistic fields. Starting from considerations on sensory urbanism, semiotics and poetics of the city, it sets out to deepen research into the phenomenology of listening by analyzing soundwalking from its origins to some of the most suggestive examples of contemporary artists, showing how listening to sounds, together with walking, is a powerful tool for expanding and transforming our perception of the world. Finally, it presents the project of Sound Cartographies of Granada, a creation of soundwalks around the city to invite walkers to discover a new aesthetic dimension that opens consciousness to a suggestive, fragile and ephemeral world, always present, although often made invisible in the daily rush of a life obsessed by productivity.