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The Acoustic City

19 May 2014

The Acoustic City

Matthew Gandy (UCL Geography and UCL Urban Laboratory Director 2005-2011) has published an edited collection The Acoustic City (Jovis, 2014) with the Swedish sound artist BJ Nilsen, completed with the support of the Leverhulme Foundation, the UCL Urban Laboratory, and the UCL Grand Challenges programme.  The book consists of a series of cutting-edge essays on sound and the city accompanied by a specially commissioned CD with contributions from Félix Blume, Ekkehard Ehlers, Yui Onodera, Schneider TM and many other artists.

The book asks how sound can shape urban life and what soundscapes reveal about the experience of modernity. The innovative essay collection explores a series of critical themes including the diversity of urban soundscapes; acoustic flânerie and different ways of listening to the city; the emergence of specific associations between place, music, and sound; and the acoustic ecology of architecture, landscape and urban design. The collection and accompanying CD will be of interest to a wide range of disciplines including architecture, cultural studies, geography, musicology, and urban sociology.

An official website has been launched for the project, theacousticcity.com. The book can be purchased through the publishers website, Touch Shop or RIBA Bookshop.

An official London launch will take place in September at UCL.