Special issue on Urban Sounds, SoundEffects – An Interdisciplinary Journal of Sound and Sound Experience

The experience of the post industrial city take on many forms, all depending on how we approach the city: walking with headphones on, driving in a car, dwelling in a park lying on the back, sitting in the movie theatre or listening to the radio. All these bodily and sensorial entries to the city relate to auditory aspects of the urban experience. Of course the city is full of sounds, not just in terms of noise or of city soundscapes, but also of concerts, sport events, installation art, social unrest, activist politics, and foreign languages. All these topics have in the past two decades played an important role for the development of sound studies as an independent area of research. With the emergence of digital technologies, new communication systems, and mobile devices, but also of experience economy and environmental initiatives, the city is full of new sounds and forms of expression.