Sonic Cartographies: Listening at the Membrane between Places, Scales, and Beings in the Network of Nonplace

Abstract In this article, I present a reflection on creative practice research I conducted in 2017; through the lens of environmental philosophy, I interpret the ideas raised in my creative practice research to suggest an expanded scope for soundscape composition in environments with highly developed public transport infrastructure. The collection of synthetic soundscapes documents and reifies the spatial and temporal conditions of urban rail as infrastructure, network, and nonplace. By recognizing how the advent of nonplaces challenges existing soundscape practices, I suggest an approach to engage with these environments in soundscape composition. This relies on a posthuman approach to listening and recording situated at the “membrane.” Through the creative use of contact microphones, intensive field recording, and creative synthesis, this project involves listening to and performing these spaces from the situated perspective of the vehicular materiality rather than from the human vantage point. To this end, this article articulates an approach to abstracted soundscapes that can describe the complexly dynamic and multiscalar geographies of urban life, finding a novel and specific form of soundscape composition for a world of machines in motion.