This weekly course explores Berlin’s sonic perspectives with an approach to architecture, urban planning, human and social sciences as well as art in our everyday life. In everyday life, our vision merges to our listening actions and therefore we continuously follow a rhythm which is created by our own actions and our surroundings. As an intuitive, non-cognitive and unconscious act, listening helps us to understand our environment. The listener creates individual and subjective images because of the fact that any acoustic format is visual. From the urban sonic perspective, every city and every urban space has a particular sonic identity for every individual. Central questions in the course are: What is the sound of Berlin? Which sonic elements in architecture, urban planning, art and cultural events have shaped berlin? How these projects are in relation to Berlin’s socio-political processes? In this course, we respond to these questions through the interdisciplinary collective listening exercises with recordings, readings and discussions. We will examine cultural projects and develop, discover, analyze the urban environment with an approach that focuses on hearing and sound. We will draw a research line for exploring the city and understanding the current urban complexities with a specific methodology that considers the aural environment, acoustic ecologies and listening.

Language requirements: English B2

The detailed syllabus is available on the Berlin Perspectives website: http://hic.hu-berlin.de/bp

Please note: The course starts in a digital format. If the pandemic situation allows it, excursions can take place, and a seminar room for on-site meetings might be used later during the semester.


Semester: SoSe 2021