Listening to reveries: sounds of a post-anthropocene ecology

This article reflects on the current sonic relationship between humans and their ecological environment. An ecological model of sound in the Anthropocene is outlined, followed by an imaginary journey into sonic futures after the Anthropocene. From one angle, it references two approaches by sound artists whose work expresses utopian or dystopian sound- and life-worlds where humans influence is absent. From a different angle, it includes reports and observations from the first lockdown phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, framed as a sudden glimpse of a sonic post-Anthropocene; a sudden human silencing that left more space for other sounds, such as singing birds. These examples are termed reveries in the sense of Gaston Bachelard because they enable one to think about post-anthropocentric sound worlds. In this way the paper describes and discusses the ethical and ecological qualities and possible impacts of such daydreamed worlds.