Organizing the Sonic Remnant. The AI-Chimera and the Praxis of Meta-Listening. Hugo Paquete. 2026

The contemporary computational audio environments have evolved from creative tools into infrastructures that pre‑structure auditory thought. It argues that commercially deployed AI systems enact a regime of automated listening that governs sonic production through three interlocking layers: material signal capture, representational modeling, and predictive temporal inference. To analyze this governance, the article introduces the SRT7 (Signal–Representation–Trajectory) framework, a critical media-analytic model mapping the material, symbolic, and temporal dimensions of sonic control. Using a practice-led methodology—combining speculative construction, forensic deconstruction, and relational framing—the article develops meta-listening as a reflexive auditory praxis capable of diagnosing and subverting automated listening systems. Two counter-infrastructural experiments support this analysis: Atmospheric Hyperinstrument (2025), which sonifies environmental data to bypass dataset hauntology, and Cyber Attack Sonifier: Glitch Ecology (2026), which renders audible the hidden violence of digital infrastructures through real-time cyberattack data. Synthesizing these investigations, the article advances the AI‑Chimera as a conceptual model for hybrid creativity emerging from distributed human–machine agencies. It concludes by positioning meta-listening as an essential political and aesthetic faculty for contesting sonic governance and for designing legible, contestable auditory infrastructures in computational culture. AI-Chimera; Meta-listening; Sonic governance; Automated listening; Computational audio; Critical AI studies; Sound studies; Media archaeology; Hybrid creativity; Sonification; SRT7 framework; Algorithmic listening; Digital audio workstations; Creative AI; Posthuman auditory practices.