When the unspeakable is brought to light …

“When the unspeakable is brought to light, it becomes political.” This statement by Annie Ernaux frames a presentation that examines how sound studies can sustain or dismantle eco-political urban discourses. At its centre stands the rat as an embodiment of the underground, the hidden and the marginalised. Here, the rat functions not only as an animal but as a metaphor for the “dark” side of urban life, which is commonly treated as a threat rather than acknowledged as coexistent.

Statistics on urban acoustics show that dominant sonic elements include noise, wind, birdsong and dogs barking, while sounds associated with infrastructure, waste and the movement of unwanted forms of life remain largely absent from research and discussion. They are pushed beyond the boundaries of both visibility and audibility. The presentation asks what we overlook and what we fail to hear when constructing assumptions for soundscape research.

The concept of the dark soundscape, derived from Timothy Morton’s dark ecology, describes this realm of hidden, overlooked and unwanted sounds that reveal deeper mechanisms of exclusion, prejudice and spatial control. Within this framework, human auditory ecology emerges as a critical field of inquiry. The project considers what might be gained by learning to listen to what has previously been unheard or ignored, and whether including “dark” sounds can broaden our understanding of the city and its ecological relations.