Can We Still Hear Each Other?
In Berlin, I was reminded again and again of walls. The real ones in the city, but also the invisible walls between disciplines, between ways of thinking, and sometimes between people themselves.
The theme of TRI Berlin was “Jump the Walls - Discover and Uncover Gaps.” And somehow the city itself became part of that theme.
Walking through Berlin, I deliberately took time to experience the city and its history. As an artist, there was one place I particularly wanted to visit: the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, designed by architect Peter Eisenman. Not simply to look at it, but to experience what this immense work might evoke.
As I walked deeper between the concrete stelae, the walls around me became higher and the city gradually seemed to disappear. Not only visually, but acoustically too. Traffic became more distant. Voices changed. The outside world seemed to recede.
As an audiologist, I noticed what happened to the sound. As a human being, I noticed what happened to me.
Standing there, surrounded by walls much higher than myself, I thought about the people behind this history. Jewish people who were persecuted and murdered, individual human beings, each with relationships, hopes, fears, dreams. And a life.
The memorial belongs to a very specific and horrific history that should never be diluted. But standing there also left me with a question that reaches into the present.
What happens when we stop seeing the human being behind a category?
Looking at the world today, that question feels painfully relevant. Not because today’s challenges can simply be compared with this horrific history, but because recognising the human being in front of us remains essential.
Even in healthcare, we sometimes risk seeing a diagnosis before seeing a person. ADHD, tinnitus, hearing loss. These categories can help us understand and support people, but they never tell the whole story.
As an artist, I see diversity as humanity’s colour palette. Different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives are not obstacles to overcome. They are what make extraordinary things possible.
Perhaps we need to remind ourselves more often: let us first and foremost be human.
That thought stayed with me throughout the congress.
Some of the moments I remember most were when science became deeply human. During one presentation, someone in the audience simply could not wait until the final Q&A. A spontaneous discussion emerged while the presentation was still underway. More and more professionals joined in, finding one another through questions, curiosity and shared passion.
It gave me goosebumps.
For a moment, we were no longer simply listening to someone presenting knowledge. We were creating something together.
Historically, artists and scientists sought each other out. They shared spaces where ideas were not only presented but tested in conversation. They talked, questioned, challenged and listened.
Somewhere along the way we drifted towards one-way communication. Modern scientific meetings are impressively efficient at transferring knowledge. We present our slides, reserve a few minutes for questions, and move on. That has enormous value.
But the depth I felt in Berlin often appeared precisely when that structure momentarily broke open. Someone couldn’t wait. Someone responded. Someone challenged. And suddenly we were no longer only speaking to one another, we started thinking with one another.
Perhaps the question for future conferences is not only: how much knowledge can we present, but also: how much space can we create for something new to emerge between people?
Perhaps Jump the Walls also means crossing not only between scientific disciplines, but between different ways of thinking. Science is extraordinarily good at measuring, analyzing, testing and explaining. Creative perspectives can sometimes ask different kinds of questions.
What are we overlooking? What happens if we look from another direction? What does an experience actually feel like?
That’s why I would love to see artists and other creative thinkers become more visible at scientific conferences. Not as decoration, but as another perspective. If our task is to discover and uncover gaps, perhaps we sometimes need exactly those who look differently?
Innovation does not always begin when we know more, sometimes it begins when somebody looks differently.
There was another moment during TRI Berlin that made all of this unexpectedly concrete.
At the social event, around a hundred hearing and tinnitus professionals were gathered in a beautiful historic ballroom. The music was playing softly in the background. People were eating. And everybody was talking.
Nothing about that sounds particularly extreme.
But put a hundred voices together in a highly reverberant room and something interesting happens. People start raising their voices in order to be heard. The room becomes louder, so people speak even louder. At times, I measured sound levels approaching 90 decibels.
And almost everybody seemed to experience the same problem. People leaned towards one another. Voices became louder. And one sentence could probably be heard repeatedly throughout the room.
"Sorry, what did you say?"
The irony was difficult to miss. A room full of hearing professionals struggling to hear one another. At a hearing and tinnitus congress, you could hardly have designed the experiment better.
If we want people to exchange ideas, we also have to create conditions in which they can actually hear one another.
I was glad I had brought my filtered music earplugs that evening. Not only for protection, but because reducing the overall level made it easier to stay engaged in conversation.
An earplug doesn’t necessarily mean I need to withdraw from this environment. It can also mean I want to stay here, I want to participate, I want to hear you.
We often associate earplugs almost exclusively with protection. Of course that matters, but in situations like this there is another purpose too. Making communication possible.
And even when earplugs are offered for free, I have done that at other audiological events, many colleagues still hesitate to use them.
Why?
Perhaps because it feels socially awkward. Perhaps because no one wants to be the first. Or perhaps because we still mostly think of them as a sign of danger or vulnerability, not as a tool for connection.
And suddenly the issue is no longer only about the ear.
Acoustics matter. Ears matter. The brain matters. Behavior matters. Social context matters. And human experience connects them all.
So perhaps there is also a very practical message for future conferences. If a hundred people gather in large reverberant rooms, why not think about communication in advance?
Look at the acoustics. Think about background music. Create quieter places to talk. And perhaps simply place good filtered earplugs at the entrance, freely available. They could even come in a small reusable case with the congress logo.
Not with a warning, be careful, sound is dangerous, but perhaps with something like:
Want to hear each other better tonight? Try these.
Because hearing care is not only about preventing damage, it is also about enabling communication, participation and connection.
Berlin also reminded me how extraordinary it is that we can meet like this at all.
During TRI, I spoke with colleagues from all over the world. Mexico, Brazil, Australia, Finland, Sweden and many other places. People with different languages, cultures and scientific traditions came together around the same questions.
We could exchange ideas, challenge one another, disagree, laugh, ask, learn.
That is not something to take for granted, it is precious, and worth protecting.
Some walls are made of concrete, others are much harder to see.
A discipline can become a wall. A scientific paradigm can become a wall. The separation between science and art can become a wall. A presentation format can become a wall if there is no room for dialogue. Poor acoustics can become a wall. Noise can become a wall between two people sitting half a meter apart. Fear can become a wall. Assumptions can become walls.
And perhaps one of the most dangerous walls begins to rise when we stop seeing the human being behind a category.
That is why I keep returning to a broader view of tinnitus and audiology.
The ear matters. The auditory system matters. The brain matters. Psychology matters. Behavior matters. Social context matters. None of these exist separately in the person sitting in front of us.
They come together in human experience.
And perhaps that is why I left Berlin with such a positive feeling.
Sometimes I hear people wondering whether we have made enough progress in understanding tinnitus. And of course, there is still so much we do not know.
But looking at everything presented and discussed in Berlin, I felt something else.
We should be proud of how far we have come.
The complexity of tinnitus is becoming increasingly clear. What once seemed like separate pieces of an enormous puzzle is gradually beginning to form a more complete picture. Neuroscience, audiology, psychology, clinical experience, behaviour and human experience. Each discipline brings another piece.
And perhaps some of the missing connections will emerge when we invite people who approach the puzzle differently.
History has shown how artists and scientists can inspire and challenge one another. Why not create more opportunities for that exchange today?
Not because art can replace science, but because another perspective might help us recognise connections we have overlooked.
The pieces are already on the table. We will undoubtedly discover more. But perhaps our next breakthrough will also come from bringing together what we already know.
And that is something to be genuinely excited about.
Perhaps that is what I will remember most from TRI 2026 Berlin.
Not a specific graph or model, but the people.
The moment somebody simply could not wait for the final Q&A because the subject mattered too much. The discussion that became deeper than the presentation. The colleague who made me see a familiar problem differently. Walking between Peter Eisenman’s stelae and hearing the city gradually disappear. People from all over the world taking time to speak and listen to one another.
And yes, a ballroom full of hearing professionals trying very hard to do exactly that.
Jumping the walls might mean many things.
Between disciplines, between science and art, between presenting and discussing, between knowledge and experience. Between protection and enabling communication. Between professional and human being. And sometimes even within our own thinking.
Because ultimately, our work is not only about sound, it is not only about ears, or even only about brains.
It is about what hearing allows human beings to do.
To communicate, participate, challenge, understand, create and connect.
Perhaps the deepest scientific conversations begin precisely there, at the moment when we stop only speaking to one another and start thinking with one another.
Hearing may start in the ear, but listening happens between people.
Comments