How do you experience a quieter city? (or A Silenced city?)
Amsterdam is normally filled with noise. The corona crisis has changed that. Few or no people on the streets, shops closed, much less traffic, hardly any planes coming over. The soundscape of the city has completely changed. Soundtrackcity, the organization behind Urban Sound Lab, therefore makes a citywide appeal: How does the city sound in times of corona?
Share your sound impression with Soundtrackcity
How do you experience the quieter city? What do you hear? We’re curious – because not everyone hears the same thing. Share a description of what you hear in an email to info@urbansoundlab.nl. You can make it as long or short as you like.
We ask you to write something about the effects of the new soundscape on your wellbeing, on your health, on your mood, on your social life. What has changed? How does it feel? What is pleasant / unpleasant? What sounds am I missing? And: How should the city sound in the future?
Response and context of the call
Why is Soundtrackcity making this call? Right at the start of the crisis, we at Soundtrackcity realized that it is valuable to collect material that represents this unusual time. We decided not only to register current urban sound by making audio recordings but also and especially to collect the impressions that the acutely changed soundscape has on the inhabitants of Amsterdam.
This call from Soundtrackcity is an encouragement to listen attentively to the city now and to see what new insights this gives us. Insights that can lead to building a more just city. The more people listen the better, feel free to send the link to this call to your friends and acquaintances.
Every week we will place an anthology of the entries in our Urban Sound Lab. Curious about the sound impressions that have already been received? Here they are
Listening to the city in times of Covid
We live in unusual times. Many people are forced to sit at home and everyone is trying to survive. Staying healthy, preventing contagion and taking care of others are now priorities. In times of Corona the world looks very different all of a sudden.
We also live in a different sonic world. Sound is a consequence of activity and now that human activity is forced back, the world sounds differently. Not only have sounds vanished, also new sounds arise and fainth sounds become hearable. Suddenly there is a lot to be heard that until recently remained hidden inside the roar of the city. How do citizens experience the changing soundscape? And what do they think of it? How do they see the future and how would they like their city to sound? Soundtrackcity issued a call to find out.
