Soundscapes of the Metropolis of Death: A Map for Future Listening

Gascia Ouzounian

How might listening to sites of historical violence and trauma open new ways of engaging with difficult histories? Drawing on a series of collective listening and sound-making encounters at former Nazi sites in Nuremberg, Munich, and Berlin in 2022, this essay explores the relationships between sound, architecture, memory, and historical violence. It examines how Nazi architectures were designed to embody and perpetuate authoritarian power, and how these structures have subsequently been transformed, repurposed, and contested. Bringing together reflections on the sonic dimensions of fascism, histories of genocide and colonialism, and the politics of remembrance and denial, the essay considers listening as a form of witnessing and critical engagement with the past. Through encounters with artists and scholars whose diverse diasporic, cultural, and personal histories inform their approaches to sound and place, it develops the possibilities of counterlistening: practices that challenge authoritarian acoustic regimes, attend to silences and absences, and create openings for alternative histories and futures. Ultimately, the essay proposes listening as a means of reimagining relationships between place, historical memory, and collective responsibility.

Citation

Ouzounian, Gascia. ‘Soundscapes of the Metropolis of Death: A Map for Future Listening.’ In Sometimes You Just Have to Give It Your Attention. Edited by Louis Chude-Sokei and Jan St. Werner. SAVVY Contemporary / SAVVY Records.

Publication link: SAVVY Contemporary