Silencing Trafalgar Square
May 22, 2020, 02:18 PM
London lockdown sound reimagined by Jason Mundok.
"According to the original sound description and upon listening to the recording, “Silence in Trafalgar Square”, it was clear that this space had far less people than usual. Never having visited Trafalgar Square myself, I talked with a friend who spent time there over the years and he also described it as a place typically bustling with people.
"I wanted my composition to address two things: emotions that express being unsure of the future, not necessarily through sadness, but instead through curiosity, and a gradual move toward the coming silence and the bizarre feelings of the unprecedented idea for entire societies to “stay home”.
"The piece moves from a disorganised mix of tones and sounds into a more rhythmic pattern, using samples from the original recording. The entire piece becomes more washed out and blurry as it moves through time until finally, like all public gathering spaces, it is silenced.
"This motion represents how the initial mix of messages and misunderstandings about the novel coronavirus eventually formed commonly accepted knowledge and understanding. We began to hear the same messages and rules to guide our behaviour repeated over and over: social distancing, wash your hands, stay home, wear masks. As our new reality took hold, life became more surreal and dreamlike until everything finally went quiet. The piece is silenced, echoed at the very end by the ghost of what was and should be occupying Trafalgar Square... people."
Part of the #StayHomeSounds project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of the global coronavirus lockdown around the world - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/covid19-sounds
"According to the original sound description and upon listening to the recording, “Silence in Trafalgar Square”, it was clear that this space had far less people than usual. Never having visited Trafalgar Square myself, I talked with a friend who spent time there over the years and he also described it as a place typically bustling with people.
"I wanted my composition to address two things: emotions that express being unsure of the future, not necessarily through sadness, but instead through curiosity, and a gradual move toward the coming silence and the bizarre feelings of the unprecedented idea for entire societies to “stay home”.
"The piece moves from a disorganised mix of tones and sounds into a more rhythmic pattern, using samples from the original recording. The entire piece becomes more washed out and blurry as it moves through time until finally, like all public gathering spaces, it is silenced.
"This motion represents how the initial mix of messages and misunderstandings about the novel coronavirus eventually formed commonly accepted knowledge and understanding. We began to hear the same messages and rules to guide our behaviour repeated over and over: social distancing, wash your hands, stay home, wear masks. As our new reality took hold, life became more surreal and dreamlike until everything finally went quiet. The piece is silenced, echoed at the very end by the ghost of what was and should be occupying Trafalgar Square... people."
Part of the #StayHomeSounds project, documenting and reimagining the sounds of the global coronavirus lockdown around the world - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/covid19-sounds