Acoustic Atmospheres

A Contribution to the Study of Ecological Aesthetics

Abstract

The German philosopher Gernot Böhme first presented the ideas for his article at the Symposium “Acoustic Ecology and Ecological Aesthetics,” on June 6, 1999 as part of the larger festival Stadtstimmen (City Voices), conceptualized by Sabine Breitsameter and organised by the city of Wiesbaden, Ger- many, (March-Oct., 1999). Critical of the natural sciences for excluding aesthetics, i.e. people’s perception and state of being, from their study of ecology, he takes the reader on a tour-de-force of philosophical thought, examining ecology, and ultimately acoustic ecology, through his “aesthetics of atmospheres.” At the symposium he spoke of ecology as the relationship between the quality of an environment and people’s state-of-being inside that environment. This relationship creates what he calls the atmosphere of a place or situation. Acoustic atmospheres become the centre of discussion in this article, examining both music and the soundscape as well as people’s forms of listening in the context of ecology.