Stijn Dickel (Belgium) will discuss his artistic research on semantics for sounds, with the objective of enriching our listening culture.

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Blind and visually impaired people have, out of necessity, a much richer listening culture. How poor are sighted people when listening!

Due to the fact that we live in a very visual world, we have developed little language around listening and sounds.
In concrete terms, the listening and language poverty in sighted people often results in appalling acoustic environments.

Little or no thought is given to how we live together aurally. City soundscapes are depleted.

The Sound Atlas, Geluidenatlas (in Dutch) of aifoon will be a tool that makes navigating in a world full of sound easier in everyday life for both blind and sighted people.
Blind and partially sighted people have taken the lead in this artistic collaborative research project.

Stijn Dickel, from aifoon, invites walk · listen · café participants to confront this issue urgently, to help address the woeful vocabulary and language around the semantics of sound.

Stijn will reveal aifoon’s plans and offer some inspriring thoughts. And, he is curious. How do other cultures and languages deal with this issue of vocabulary and language poverty? What can we learn from other disciplines?

Let us brainstorm together, loudly!

Stijn Dickel

Listening artist (Belgium) 

This event will be moderated by Geert Vermeire.