The Soundscape of Johannesburg: Field Recording as Creative Cartography.

Abstract Despite being widely contested, the term “soundscape” remains a prominent analytical tool in sound studies because of its comprehensibility, making it a versatile starting point for cross-disciplinary discussion and collaboration. Over the past few decades, significant socio-economic and political change has shaped Johannesburg, influencing its soundscape. From the perspective of field recording as creative cartography what insights into this transformation, spatial segregation, and socio-economic inequalities can an auditory understanding of the city provide? The authors discuss two of their own sound works, namely 20 Janets (2021) and Somewhere in-between (2022), both of which investigate alternative aural cartographies of Johannesburg.