The Belliphonic Mind

Sound-based research and musical production on the sonic memory of armed conflict

The battlefield of today’s soundscape is not only ecological, but above all geopolitical and inevitably biopolitical

“There is no document of civilisation which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.”

Walter Benjamin, On the Concept of History (1940)

A research and musical production project on the acoustic dimension of armed conflict and the sonic memory of war, developed collaboratively by Flo Huth and Mikel R. Nieto with the participation of Kasia Kadlubowska, Zoé Pouri and Joss Turnbull.

The concept of the “belliphonic”—proposed by Martin Daughtry—describes the acoustics of war and the ways in which the sonic environment is reorganised, positioning the ear as a survival sensor and placing listening in the midst of the battlefield. War produces sonic events and, with them, an acoustic condition of the world before and between us, even when we do not wish to attend to or hear it. Perhaps for that very reason, it is worth stopping to listen to the world’s ethical silences.

“What do we do in the face of the pain of others?”

Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (2003)