Foreword

Abstract

The relation between sound and listening entails one of the most intriguing philosophical riddles: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to perceive it, does it still make a sound? The riddle is based on George Berkeley's (1685-1753) manuscript A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) and until now, no agreement on the answer has been reached. As people have debated the answer for over 300 years, it is definitely not the aim of this special issue of Documenta, een tijdschrift voor theater to solve this riddle. On the contrary -in one way or another, all contributors to this issue question the relationship between sound and listening. Their contributions originated in the context of the doctoral school Sound & Listening on the edge of music, performance, film and new media, a five-day platform that took place in May 2019.