Listening to Listening Machines: On Contemporary Sonic Media Critique

“The tape recorder . . . creates above all new conditions of observations,” Pierre Schaeffer writes. This article picks up the theme of the link between listening and technology and asks how contemporary sound artworks reflect the relation between technology and perception. It suggests that many contemporary sound artworks explore the way digital culture conditions our listening acts. Based on a tentative analysis including works by Mihara et al., Zorio, Ikeda and Skjødt, the article argues that art lets us experience not only sound but also technological mediation, providing insight into how in the current digital culture we are constantly sharing our perception of the environment with nonhuman listening machines.