ABSTRACT
The concept of the “acoustic space” has, since its inception, maintained an uneasy relation to technologies of mediation: whereas sounds that could be connected to space supported and articulated a “listening subject” who participated as part of a cogent world of objects, the affordances of communication technologies such as radio and telephony collapsed the logic of these spaces, and were associated with the production of a schizophonic subjectivity. Nevertheless, the narrative of the listener could generally be sustained in this context, albeit with the intrusion of some plot holes. In the current environment, where, for many, the soundscape of contemporaneity is further transected by the seemingly ubiquitous presence of available data and the emergence of technologies such as conversational interfaces reconfigure the home. The author then asks: How do we conceive of presence at a point where acoustic communication both sustains and collapses the possibility of the listening subject?
