The global Covid pandemic has changed our listening, this is particularly true for those of us living in urban and industrialized areas. What do we hear when the trucks are not rumbling down our street? What do we pay attention to when people are tucked away in their homes and not out on the street in their vehicles? This might mean a heightened awareness of nature, particularly birds, it also might highlight the man-made sounds that were once so prevalent that we simply ignored them — when the trucks are less frequent suddenly we pay attention to them.
This post brings together a few projects that emerged during the lockdown of 2020 and that explore the soundscape of Covid-19. To see other posts that explore the idea of the pandemic and sound, you can explore the tag #Pandemic
Here are a few quarantine-related works
Sound Of The Earth: The Pandemic Chapter
https://soundhouse.org
In this moment of tremendous change and uncertainty, the Dallas Museum of Art in collaboration with experience and sound designer Yuri Suzuki wanted to create an open platform for people to express themselves and to capture our shared experience of the fleeting moments around us during this period. Through our collective observations and the simple act of listening, we hope to provide participants with a moment of global shared empathy and a means of connection. While physical isolation is often necessary in this current moment, connection is more important than ever.
We invite you to submit sounds—from cooking dinner at home, to the ambulance siren passing by, to online connections with loved ones—and build a record of this global moment with us. The sounds will be mapped onto a virtual rendering of the globe based on the location in which they were captured, culminating in Sound of the Earth: The Pandemic Chapter—a dynamic audio experience of the lives of people around the globe.
SOUNDHOUSE
https://soundhouse.org
24 hours with sounds from artists, made in their daily work and life during spring 2020. A different artist every hour (based on CEST).
#StayHomeSounds – Cities and Memory
This project is part of the site Cities and memory run by the artist Stuart Fawkes. The aim of Cities and Memory is to present field recordings from around the world (that’s the “cities” part of the title) and also remixes of those field recordings (that’s the “memory” part of the title). The site has hosted numerous themes including Sounding Nature, Sacred Spaces, Protest and Politics.
#StayHomeSounds turns its microphone to the global lockdown and sounds captured during the pandemic.
You can listen to the field recordings or the Remixes by clicking the images above.
Voice yard
https://voiceyard.online/
The voice, as well as any object, is an instrument. VOICE YARD is an online soundboard where you can record your feelings through sound and play music with other voices.
“So, can technology bring us closer to hearing our inner voices, or does it alienate us from them? What role does voice play in the modern world, where online communication holds the same (if not greater) importance as the physical kind? Can we learn more about ourselves, and people around, by being more careful and attentive to the way we sound? What does it mean – to un-mute one’s voice?
These questions arose especially sharply these days – in a world paralyzed with quarantine measures, entrapping people within the walls of their dwellings, closing their mouths with masks, and forcing communication into online spaces. Conversations are forced into webcams, mobile calls and messenger apps. Maybe now is a good time to listen closely, and try to hear some answers that voices can give us?”