Article commissioned and published by The Attic Magazine, and to be discussed at the Sonic Turn Conference, November 14—15th, National Theatre Bucharest.
Abstract: In the interstice between sound, space, and memory, this article unfolds a mnemosonic topography — an embodied listening practice that traces the ephemeral contours of place through sonic resonance and sensory recall. Drawing upon field recordings and psychoacoustic reflection, it navigates the liminal terrain where sonic phenomena become mnemonic vessels, carrying sedimented histories and affective geographies. Through a trauma‑informed lens and an ethics of minute listening, the work interrogates how acoustic ecologies inscribe themselves upon the sensorium, revealing latent narratives embedded in the sonic substrata of contested landscapes, and exposing the entanglement of personal and collective memory with spatial experience.
The methodology emerges from a transdisciplinary praxis, integrating sound art, ecological awareness, and phenomenological inquiry. Listening is approached not as passive reception but as an active epistemic gesture — a way of knowing that resists ocularcentrism and privileges the vibrational intimacy of place. By mapping sonic memory across spatial thresholds, the article proposes a sensory epistemology that is both archival and generative, where the act of listening becomes a form of witnessing, healing, and reimagining.
Written by Manja Ristić.
*** This article is part of the project The Sonic Turn, co-financed by AFCN.