Article

L’ipotesi delle nicchie acustiche. Un modello biosemiotico per le sfide dell’Antropocene

by Emiliano Battistini

in Versus n. 135, Biosemiotica e antropocene / Biosemiotics and Anthropocene, pp.247-266

Abstract (english)

Inside the wider field of biosemiotics, this paper gives attention to bioacoustics, the science that studies living beings through sound. Sound is conceived here both as an intra- and inter-specific mean of communication and a valuable indicator about ecosystems’ health. Analyzing ecosystems through the sonic dimension – that is essentially relational –, bioacoustics avoids to reduce the environment to a purely object and it represents a complex knowledge useful to answer to the Anthropocene ecological challenges. In specific, the Acoustic Niches Hypothesis by Bernie Krause and its musical metaphor can be read as a semiotic model useful to reintegrate the human animal inside the world of livings.