Our acoustic environment is an important part of our living conditions. It affects us directly and we cannot escape from it – we cannot turn off our ears. Nonetheless society as a whole has a disregard for acoustic conditions. The noise of traffic has homogenised the formerly individualistic soundscapes of our cities to a monotonous hum that even the most costly noise protection measures cannot make go away. Architecture traffic and spatial planning have become “deaf” disciplines, which habitually disregard the acoustic consequences of their actions. Technological revolutions have made acoustic irradiation possible anywhere and at any time, which has added an economic dimension to hearing: all kinds of commercial products, from cars to washing powder, are given an acoustic profile to underline their quality. Shops, shopping malls, restaurants, waiting rooms, telephone loops, even public toilets are the scenes for the enforced acoustic irradiation of millions of citizens. All this happens in legal vacuum. We experience the acoustic domain as the kind of lawless frontier territory we have come to associate with the Wild West: there are no binding rules for acoustic coexistence in any democratic society. Building on the idea of Linz’s legendary Klangwolke, HÖRSTADT posits the entire city as an acoustic space: HÖRSTADT wants to be a catalyst for the formation of an acoustic consciousness, to sensitise people to matters related to hearing and to build up a society-wide resistance to acoustic disenfranchisement.