All JSS issues up to now, perhaps with the exception of JSS1, have been special ones, dealing with a specific theme: listening, television sounds, sonic epistemologies. (The upcoming JSS6 will be devoted to sound design, by the way.) JSS5 is special in another way: seldom will an issue of a journal be filled completely by texts and A/V materials composed by the editors of that journal themselves. Editors typically provide an opportunity to others to present their work, their experiences, their thoughts, their research, their findings; this time, however, the JSS editors use their own journal as a platform to display some of their own reflections on sound studies and sound art.[1] Shameless self-promotion or healthy pragmatism? The most important reason is that we think that the two items presented in this issue – a report of an expert meeting on auditory culture and a handful of mini-essays inspired by a sound art exhibition – might interest our readers: the first because it features efforts to transgress scientific and academic barriers in and through sound studies, the second because it presents a new way to write around sound art.