Exploring the Ecologies of Music and Sound, with Makis Solomos

This conference will present some ideas from the recent book of Makis Solomos. This book explores the ecologies of music and sound, inspired by Felix Guattari, for whom environmental destruction caused by capitalism goes hand in hand with deteriorating ways of living and feeling, and for whom an ecosophical stance, combining various ecological registers, offers a glimpse of emancipation. The book explores environmental, mental, and social ecologies through the lens of the history of music and current artivisms – especially in the fields of acoustic ecology, contemporary music, and sound art, focusing on figures such as Hildegard Westerkamp, Agostino Di Scipio, Jean-Luc Hervé, Francisco López, Chris Watson, or  Iannis Xenakis. Several theoretical and analytical debates are put forward, including a theory of sound milieus and the biopolitics of sound; the relationships between music and the living world; soundscape compositions, field recording, ecomusicology, and the creation of sound biotopes. The use of sound and music to violent ends is also considered, as are the social and political functions of music and the autonomy of art, sonic ecofeminism, degrowth in music, and much more.

Makis Solomos is Professor of musicology at the University Paris 8. He is one of the main international Xenakis’ specialists, to whom he devoted many publications and symposiums. He is co-founder of the review Filigrane. Musique, son, esthétique, société. His recent research focus on sound ecology and on performing Xenakis’s music. His new book is Exploring the Ecologies of Music and Sound. Environmental,  Mental and Social Ecologies in Music, Sound Art and Artivisms (Routledge, 2023). His book De la música al sonido. La emergencia del sonido en la música de los siglos XX y XXI, traduction Javier Roma) is forthcoming (editions Akal).