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Listening and Immersion

Écoute et immersion

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Abstract

Réunissant des spécialistes de philosophie, musicologie et sound studies, l’événement interrogera la tension entre un usage descriptif et un usage théorique de la notion d'immersion, notamment appliquée aux arts sonores et musicaux. Trois axes structureront les échanges : l’existence d'une écoute immergée selon les contextes d’écoute ; l’ontologie et les normes d'appréciation d’une œuvre sonore immersive ; et les formes d’écoute privilégiées dans les traditions musicales non occidentales.

Announcement

Français English

Location and dates: University of Caen, France; 18-19 March 2027.

Argument

The University of Caen Normandy, in collaboration with the French University Institute (IUF), Nantes University, and Université Paris Cité, is organizing a conference on listening and immersion on 18–19 March 2027. The event will bring together international specialists in philosophy, musicology, and sound studies. The keynote speakers will be Professor Anne Holzmüller (university of Marburg), Nanette Nielson (university of Oslo) and Professor Alexandre Chèvremont (university of Lille).

In its primary sense, immersion refers to the state of a body being submerged in a liquid environment. It thus presupposes the passage from one element to another, a transition that can sometimes suggest an experience of defamiliarization. Finally, the term also denotes an experience in which one perceives the surrounding medium with its density and resistance (Trentini, 2014). Critical and theoretical discourses on art oscillate between a descriptive and a theoretical use of immersion.

1.     The descriptive usage is associated with the development of a particular form – immersive arts – which encompasses practices in which the spectator is at the center of the work rather than positioned in front of it. These practices involve the deployment of contemporary technologies, ranging from the diffusion of ambient sounds to the video projection of animated images, as well as the use of motion sensors or VR headsets. From this perspective, immersive arts are historically situated forms, marking a discontinuity with art forms that might be described as distant or representational.

2.     The theoretical usage, by contrast, suggests continuity with earlier artistic practices. Here, immersion designates psychological absorption (Schaeffer, 1999; Ryan, 2001; Vroegh, 2018) or a particular type of aesthetic experience (Böhme, 1995; Griffiths, 2008). This continuity-based interpretation underpins museum practices, where works are subject to significant modifications in modes of display (Darsel, 2026).

This colloquium focuses on sound and musical arts, which exemplify this tension particularly acutely. The sonic medium is assumed to “pass through us entirely” (Plessner, 1951), unlike visual media. While immersion in the visual realm is only metaphorical, it seems that we can be literally submerged in sound. This may explain the central role of sound design in art installations claiming an immersive dimension (Dyson, 2009). New sonic devices – whether personal portable systems, domestic installations, or concert hall setups – enable listeners to be enveloped in sound; they constitute the auditory equivalent of the panorama, which has been suggested as a prototype for immersive visual art (Griffiths, 2008; Sohier, Gillet, & Staszak, 2019). Listening practices are thereby profoundly transformed (Niklas, 2014).

More specifically, music has sometimes been described as a more “immersive” art than others, insofar as the comprehension of its meaning is possible only through absorption in its forms in motion (Müller, 2021). These hypotheses, however, contrast with the conception of listening as a distanced reception (Dufrenne, 1987; Adorno, 1938), as well as with the description of musical experience as the contemplation of a sound object in the process of formation (Ingarden, 1962). This raises the question of the extent to which the description of musical appreciation in immersive or distanced terms may itself be ideologically conditioned.

Three problematic axes will guide the discussion:

I.  Can one posit, on the basis of the mere enveloping dimension of sound, the existence of an immersed experience or immersed listening? Can one speak of immersion without considering differentiated listening contexts (concert, domestic speaker, headphones, binaural recording, etc.)? Does the sonic or musical medium possess a specific immersivity such that it can serve as a factor of immersion in multimodal installations?

II. What is the ontology of an immersive sonic or musical work? Correspondingly, what are its norms of appreciation? Do these norms modify or subvert the concept of listening?

III. Which forms of sonic experience and listening are privileged in non-Western musical or artistic traditions? Do these experiences allow us to reconsider the categories of immersion and distance from a comparative perspective?

Submission guidelines

Papers, with a maximum duration of 30 minutes, should preferably fall within one of these three thematic strands, although the scientific committee remains open to other approaches.

Proposals should be submitted by email to the three conference organizers no later than 15 October 2026, in the form of an abstract of no more than 1000 words (excluding bibliography), written in either French or English. The abstract should include an outline of the presentation, its main arguments, and, where appropriate, an indication of the thematic strand to which it relates. The document, in Word or OpenDocument format, should be named SurnameFirstName.

The scientific committee will notify applicants of its decision no later than 15 November 2026. Selected speakers will be responsible for their own travel expenses to Caen, while accommodation will be covered by the organizing institutions.

Languages of the colloquium: English and French

Keynote speakers

  • Professor Anne Holzmüller, university of Marburg.
  • Professor Nanette Nielson (université d'Oslo)
  • Professor Alexandre Chèvremont, university of Lille.

Scientific organizers

  • Maud Pouradier (maud.pouradier@unicaen.fr)
  • Quentin Gailhac (quentin.gailhac@u-paris.fr)
  • Vincent Granata (vincent.granata@univ-nantes.fr)

Selected bibliography

T.W. Adorno, « Über den Fetischcharakter in Musik und die Regression des Hörens », Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, 1938, p. 321-356.

G. Böhme, Atmosphäre. Essais zur neuen Ästhetik, Frankfurt, 1995.

S. Darsel, « L’activation esthétique. Le cas de la virtualisation de l’art » in A. Arbot et R. Pouivet (dir.), Les Arts en action, Rennes, PUR, 2026, p. 49-62.

H. Do, L’Immersion sonore : analyse du phénomène et réalisation compositionnelle, thèse de doctorat, Sorbonne Université, 2024.

M. Dufrenne, L’Œil et l’oreille, Montreal, l’Hexagone, 1987, rééd. Nouvelles éditions Place, 2020.

F. Dyson, Sounding New Media: Immersion and Embodiment in the arts and culture, Berkeley, University of California press, 2009.

A. Griffiths, Shivers down your spine, New York, Columbia university press, 2008.

N. Holzmüller et W. Fuhrmann, Zwischen Absorption und Überwältigung. Musikalische Immersion in der Diskussion (Musiktheorie 35,1), 2020.

N. Holzmüller, « Warum es sich (immer noch) lohnt, über Immersion und Musik nachzudenken. Fünf thesen », Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 186, 4, 2025, p. 10-14.

R. Ingarden, « Das Musikwerk », Untersuchungen zur Ontologie der Kunst, Tübingen, Niemeyer, 1962, tr. fr. S. Dujka, 1989.

R. Müller, La Puissance de la musique, Paris, Vrin, 2021.

J. Nechvatal, Immersion into Noise, Londres, Open Humanities Press, 2011.

S. Niklas, Die Kopfhörerin: Mobiles Musikhören ans ästhetische Erfahrung, Leyde/Zurich, Brill/Fink, 2014.

H. Plessner, « Zur Anthropologie der Musik », Jahrbuch für Ästhetik une allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft, 1951.

M.-L. Ryan, Narrative as Virtual Reality, 2001, rééd. Baltimore, JHU press, 2015.

J.-M. Schaeffer, Pourquoi la fiction ?, Paris, Seuil, 1999.

W. Scrimshaw, Immanence and Immersion: on the acoustic condition in contemporary art, Londres, Bloomsbury academic, 2017.

E. Sohier, A. Gillet et J.-F. Staszak, Simulations du monde: Panoramas, parcs à thème et autres dispositifs immersifs, Genève, Métis press, 2019.

B. Trentini, « Pour une immersion non transparente » in B. Guelton (dir.), Figures de l’immersion, Rennes, PUR, 2014, p. 25-38.

T. Vroegh, The Pleasures of getting involved into the Music: Absorption and its role in the aesthetic of music, Dissertation (Goethe University Frankfurt).

Event attendance modalities

Full on-site event


Keywords

  • musique, écoute, immersion, sound studies, philosophie de la musique, philosophie de la culture

Contact(s)

  • Vincent Granata
    courriel : vincent [dot] granata [at] univ-nantes [dot] fr
  • Maud Pouradier
    courriel : maud [dot] pouradier [at] unicaen [dot] fr
  • Quentin Gailhac
    courriel : quentin [dot] gailhac [at] u-paris [dot] fr

License

CC-BY-4.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0 International - CC BY 4.0 .

To cite this announcement

Maud Pouradier, Quentin Gailhac, Vincent Granata, « Listening and Immersion », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Thursday, June 25, 2026, https://doi.org/10.58079/16gml

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