Juliana Carla Bastos, Report on The Global Composition 2018

Photo courtesy of The Global Composition 2018

 Juliana Carla Bastos (Brazil)
@laboratoriodesons, julianacarlabastos@gmail.com
 
Gathering the discussions and yearnings of three generations of acoustic ecology scholars, the The Global Composition 2018 (TGC2018) was an opportunity to broaden and deepen our understandings on the diversity of listening, an experience framed by the impressive silence of the Mediencampus of Dieburg.
 
Some aspects evoked during the four days of TGC2018 that are worth mentioning are:

• How the Global North/South situation stood during the plenary sessions and also in the papers highlighting features, tendencies and gaps on valuation and legitimization of listenings closely connected to historical, cultural, political and human aspects of each country/region participating in the event.
• To consider the participation of scholars of urbanism as potential allies in the maturation and constant resignification of the global acoustic ecology studies.
• In order to extend the applicability of the Schaferian legacy, it is necessary to consider listening more as a politicized act: an invitation for acoustic ecologists to contemplate what is done with this listening. This goes through the comprehension of symbolic and decolonial dimensions, trans-sonifying the act of listening from a mere act of servitude and/or curiosity into a tool that facilitates the constitution and maintenance of holistic consciousness.
• Finally, including contemporary gender discussions and reports of victims of noise pollution, among others, opens space for unique and important opportunities to learn about the specificities of listening and helps scholars in the area to use and resignify scientific instruments in order to capture, understood and show good and real results.

 
These are some notes on the TGC2018 that aim not only to contribute to the acoustic ecology initiatives initiated in Tuning of the World 1993, but also to discover ways of approaching the area in a diverse world and in need of discussions and studies about the sonorous that surrounds us and defines us as human beings.