Anticipating his forthcoming book Notes on the Third Ear (Urbanomic, 2026), Steve Goodman will share his work in progress on thresholds of audibility and the Janus-faced instrumentalisation of vibration involved in sonic warfare. His presentation will focus on what he terms “auricular multiplication,” the externalisation of the auditory system, the outsourcing of listening to machines and the proliferation of artificial ears to form a distributed network of data hungry sensors in which the planet obsessively listens to itself. Goodman’s presentation will be followed by a conversation on the sonic fiction of “the third ear” and the relation of machine listening to his earlier research on sound and warfare.

Steve Goodman (Kode9) is a musician, artist, and writer. He is the founder of the record labels Hyperdub and Flatlines, and the producer of five albums and numerous mix compilations. His work spans electronic music, sound theory, and installation, exploring the affective and political dimensions of sound. He is the author of Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear (2010), and co-edited the books Unsound:Undead (2019) and Sonic Faction: Audio Essay as Medium and Method (2024).