Listening to Noise and Silence

In the fifth chapter of Listening to Noise and Silence Voegelin describes listening as an act of perceptive engagement with the world. Listeners always find themselves in an uncertain position, as they experience the work both from within and from without. A full and pure experience of the work, Voegele argues, requires rejecting all external disruptions and concentrating on the moment of perception, on being'in the work'. Such a listening allows the listener to become both the receptor of the work and its creator - both in the moment of listening and while encountering other receptors/creators. Voegelin's approach is in a way'musicophobic,' as it privileges the listener's experience and consciousness of all aspects related to the production of sound art over the music and sound themselves.