The city sings with electricity
Jun 15, 2020, 09:39 AM
Outside the Bodleian Library, Oxford during lockdown reimagined by Cities and Memory.
"The silence in the city centre, outside the world-famous Bodleian Library, was one of those strangely pervasive, slightly sinister city silences. The way a city sounds at 4am, except this was 8pm.
"The drone of the city's air conditioning, power sources, light switches and street lamps becomes the dominant ambience, and becomes overpowering on its own, as represented by the synths in this piece, and the cracking buzzes at the start and finish symbolise the electricity coursing through the city.
"Every passing conversation becomes amplified, everything a passer-by says carries new import, as you can hear from the snippets of speech in the piece, and even the distant bells you'd have struggled to hear beneath the hum of traffic now stand out clearly.
"During lockdown, the city sings with electricity, and this piece brings out that song and places it front and centre."
"The silence in the city centre, outside the world-famous Bodleian Library, was one of those strangely pervasive, slightly sinister city silences. The way a city sounds at 4am, except this was 8pm.
"The drone of the city's air conditioning, power sources, light switches and street lamps becomes the dominant ambience, and becomes overpowering on its own, as represented by the synths in this piece, and the cracking buzzes at the start and finish symbolise the electricity coursing through the city.
"Every passing conversation becomes amplified, everything a passer-by says carries new import, as you can hear from the snippets of speech in the piece, and even the distant bells you'd have struggled to hear beneath the hum of traffic now stand out clearly.
"During lockdown, the city sings with electricity, and this piece brings out that song and places it front and centre."
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