The unprecedented events of Covid-19 changed the sonic environments of our daily lives. The stay-at-home orders altered the perceptual sound environments in urban public spaces due to decreased human-generated sounds, such as talking, interacting, performing, and human presence in urban places, resulting in alternative sonic relationships. In Belfast, Northern Ireland, there were two lockdowns between March and October 2020, which made it possible to record the pandemic’s effect on fifteen varied urban spaces with audio-visual methods. As an international student, based in the city, I was isolated and restricted from returning home during these lockdowns. This project began as a passive form of artistic practice-based research documenting personal soundwalks and creating soundscape compositions from field recordings, in which field recordings are edited down to create specific listening experiences.
Under the strict government regulations that only allowed people to leave their homes for exercise once per day, I collected audio material during my single daily walk (see Image 1 for a map of my walk on 27 March 2020), framed within the context of soundwalking, where I am actively listening to spaces. The captured field recordings were limited to a five-minute duration in a standing fixed position at each location, based on the stay-at-home rules, the visibility of the landscape, and personal safety while alone in these spaces. The soundwalks followed a pre-planned route influenced by the Visit Belfast Tourist Map (2019) for Lockdown 1 and then an approach themed on industries and sectors affected by Lockdown 2. To clarify, during the one period of daily exercise allowed, the government’s rules, enforced by the threat of penalties, prevented anyone from remaining in one particular location for an extended period – that is, sitting or not actively engaging in exercise – and also restricted the distance one could go from one’s home, hence my limited amount of location recording and usable material for soundscape composition.
After each lockdown, I used the same constraints as a comparative model to have consistency between lockdown periods and exit strategies. This means that to avoid breaking Covid rules, each soundwalk generated only a few moments of audio recordings and a small number of photos. The audio-visual material focuses on observing, capturing, and then sharing a consolidated moment of a soundwalk in digital formats (online/soundmaps) as soundscape compositions. This research presents parts of my self-observation and self-reflection to understand the events that transpired being in lockdown in a foreign country during Covid-19.
Soundwalk experiences were documented using field recordings and processed into time-compressed soundscape compositions that act as a creative interpretation and documentation of the pandemic events across different lockdowns and exit strategies during the Covid-19 pandemic in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Audio-visual methods combine various on/off-site experiences based on the sonic shifts in urban spaces due to government rules. It concentrates on preserving current events to provide a story and sonic timeline of Belfast during Covid-19. The artistic project of soundscape compositions represents fragments of the experienced events and attempts to demonstrate the sonic changes in urban environments. The entirety of this research stems from an immediate response to the lockdowns and to my experiences and observations of how Covid-19 has continuously transformed sonic relationships in the urban spaces of Belfast.
Research Question 1:
How do sound and listening convey an experience(s) of the pandemic within a city?
Research Question 2:
What do creative soundscape compositions represent in terms of documenting historical, social-cultural, and political changes?
Research Question 3:
How can sonic experiences be shared to gain new perspectives and knowledge of urban life?
The research acts as a foundation for a longer study, which will involve comparative reflections based on a yearly review of locations and/or if there are subsequent lockdowns following Lockdowns 1 and 2. While it is important to reflect on the documented sounds and experiences of others who have contributed to soundmaps or recorded personal audio collections, my research is not currently focused on recordings made by others since this would entail a shift in research focus for this exposition. This exposition highlights documented sounds during a pandemic and personal experiences of those specific moments, reflecting on government rules that have ultimately changed the dynamics of human presence within urban spaces.
During a holiday or different time of day, these urban locations would be subjected to other sonic activities. The recordings took place during highly active hours of the day and days of the week within the city. If there were no pandemic, there would be sounds from various shops, pubs, restaurants, a fluctuation in the number of visitors (local or tourists), performers, musicians, workers, industrial sounds, natural sounds, and other sounds that are active during non-pandemic times. Almahmood et al. (2022) describe the importance of urban space, where it hosts an area for social well-being which would ideally represent qualities such as liveability, sociability, and accessibility. The government rules ceased any normal interaction with our urban spaces, an attempt to lessen the spreading of the virus. However, this prevented and changed our interaction with the built environment which maintains a network of communities, a way of life, and it created a gap within our society. The soundscape compositions attempt to represent those moments captured by field recording and soundwalk experiences, which can be either accessed through online platforms, online archives, soundmaps, or soundwalking apps. The key factor is how documenting sounds from these spaces introduces a perspective on the pandemic events and an ability to review material from an alternative angle, in this instance through sound.
A main viewpoint afforded by these documented locations would be a question of importance or relevance, a thought such as “what is the difference between a pandemic or when there is a bank holiday”. The importance of the recordings rests with the context in which they were recorded such as timing, chosen location, date, and period within the pandemic. From an urban planning perspective, Ma, Mak, and Wong (2021) discuss that a listened-to soundscape is a set of perceptual points of information attached to the context of the environment, providing a set of resources to make understandings and decisions. Considering the conditions of restrictions and lockdowns, there is an ability to connect governmental communication and impact on city life through soundwalk experiences, all of which indicated a shift in daily life and the use of urban spaces. Drever (2013) explains that soundwalking is an act to connect or re-connect with urban design, where we focus on the elements that make a space. Cities embody various forms of life, relationships, and materials, and they are spaces largely designated for human activity or interaction. Listening to or recording sounds of these spaces during a pandemic is a reflection of the changes introduced to our standard relationship with these built spaces.
Sound recordings represent a moment in our modern history inviting a sonic interpretation of transpired events. Therefore, soundscape compositions produced from the experience of soundwalks, and the field recordings captured, are among the interpretations that best reflect our modern history. Martin (2018) explains that soundscape compositions present a wider approach to the concept of change through the lens of sound, which can be intertwined with multiple areas of development or focus, such as socio-cultural, industrial, and political themes. While these soundscape compositions are an individual perspective on the sonic relationship between place, environment, and the pandemic, soundscape composition is an artistic method of sharing sonic environments through which others can render their understandings of the pandemic in Belfast.
This research is primarily styled as sonic journalism with the aid of photos to direct or guide listeners to a physical location. The photos were added as a secondary component to support online platform distribution, such as YouTube, since soundmaps have an integrated geo-located point created to indicate the location of the recordings. For those accessing the material on my website or YouTube, there needed to be some information to aid in placing the listener in similar positions to my recorded surroundings, and YouTube allowed unlimited uploads at no cost, unlike SoundCloud. Furthermore, most of these online hosting platforms require or suggest an image upload. Unfortunately, with the recording circumstances, it was difficult to photograph every instance at which a sound was recorded, such as a car going past the audio recorder, since I was holding the instrument in my hand. The photos do not capture all sonic activity and should only be regarded as an aid to place listeners in a recording position or environment, depending on where they are accessing the audio material.
An animated photo album can be produced using iMovie's accessible transitional photo settings. The current animated photographic compilation acts similarly to a bespoke slideshow and can be posted on suitable channels, such as YouTube. The use of zoom-in and zoom-out techniques, in either an upward or downward direction, emphasises the act of studying a photograph to aid in locating humans within a landscape. In the meantime, the audio component interweaves with the recordings' major sonic parts. The pictures provide a greater contextualisation of the audio experience for those who are unfamiliar with Belfast or have yet to have the opportunity to visit the city. However, the soundscape compositions are not based on photographic elements. Creating an audio-photographic soundscape (APS) requires integrating aural and visual elements to produce a singular and inclusive experience.
Field recordings were used to capture the sonic events from the soundwalks throughout Covid-19 and to relay auditory information relating to an urban place. Sound can be interpreted as crucial information that provides insight into particular moments or changes in space, just as valuable as other forms of documentary approaches, such as photography or videography (Cusack 2016). Focusing on the auditory sensory information of these events allows for recall and reflection, which contributes to further perceptual data collection in which we can compile other levels of understanding of the changes or effects caused by events in urban spaces. Each medium (photo, video, audio recording) has specific strengths and weaknesses; in this project, certain visual methods were used to direct the listener to a recording position in the spaces, while the primary tool for site awareness was the soundscape compositions. This unique and time-limited event means recording sound from deserted urban spaces is time-sensitive and unrepeatable. As a sound researcher, capturing audio of these events forms a sharing of sonic knowledge on a global scale, a contribution to archival platforms, a sonic timeframe of the developments of Covid-19 within the city, and a further insight into our sonic environment. This entails changes in sonic relationships, activities, known/unknown sounds, and the balance between human-generated sounds and natural or urban sounds.
In addition to the primary element of the research, the main part of the project featured on my website, https://georgiosvaroutsos.com/covid-19/, represents a digital form of audio-visual journalism where the captured material is represented through audio-photographic soundscapes (APS). The Soundscape for each lockdown is separate, forming a part of the multiple recordings of a location side by side for comparative analysis (Varoutsos 2020). Documenting the changes from the beginning of the lockdown revealed that the lack of human presence augments the locations’ urban and natural sonic relationships. The gathered material forms a timeframe that displays and discusses changes from each recorded event. The intent is to share information about these changes through forms of soundscape compositions and comparative listening modes capturing the events witnessed. The site hosts the APS in the form of a YouTube slideshow or singular photo videos so that the photos visually guide the listener to see the recorded location and listen to the sonic information of the captured moment.
With the government rules closing most shops and facilities, the city largely lacked human interaction and daily human events in places where there would usually be workers, pub and restaurant customers, artistic performers, and people undertaking leisure activities such as walking, running, and cycling. Without this sonic presence, the city's sound grew where it was once masked. At the same time, people sought a haven from remaining indoors for prolonged periods; thus, people ventured more into nearby green spaces (within and around the city). The human emptiness of the city presented an opportunity to listen to the layers on which the city is built, the context of the present time, and the influence of government rules that changed our lives during those months of lockdown.
The Entries (Joy’s Entry) is an active alleyway, which is usually used by people, connecting dfferent parts of the city; it has various shops or pubs that generate human noises and even music (live/radio). The Botanic Gardens, which sits next to Queen’s University Belfast, hosts a wide variety of wildlife and human activities. People were drawn to these areas instead of city routes.
Listening to these two locations recorded on the same day reveals that popular areas of the city were empty of most human life, which was the opposite of what would be normal for a Friday in the city. The sonic environments flipped in terms of the routine activity in a particular urban space concerning location, time of day, and day of the week. Solomos (2018) describes sound as an event that relays information about relationships within an environment. As a sensory experience, sound helps us place ourselves in an environment that acts as a glue connecting us to a space and the changes or elements within it. Once there is a change to the routine sound of an environment, there is a process of questioning the difference or the unfamiliar. In this case, we are introduced to a heightened experience of listening to the built environment at a unique moment, representing the impact on or changes to our daily lives and surrounding sonic environments.
The distribution of soundscape material on other digital platforms, such as sound maps, focuses on general sonic recordings or recordings that make a specific contribution to depicting the events of Covid-19. New relationships of sounds presented themselves throughout the different stages of lockdowns in each country, city, and local community. In this digital era, access to these alterations in the sonic environment has been provided via various mediums, most noticeably sound maps. The contributions I made to sites such as Pete Stollery’s Covid-19 Sound Map (2020), Stuart Fowkes’ Cities and Memory’s #StayHomeSounds project (2020), using Josh Kopeček’s Echoes App for the NI Science Festival (2020), and Udo Noll’s Radio Aporee (2019) in affiliation with the Internet Archive (2014) give immediate access to specific locations and sonic changes occurring in specific timeframes. These types of projects further increase archival material by documenting, capturing, and sharing knowledge for others to learn from or experience, either at a distance or to physically experience on-site. For the sound maps, the shared soundscape compositions become part of a global learning and community-engaged project, where the act of openness to share informs the other of situations or understandings from diverse landscape points around the world. They also add to the sense of a global community – that in a time such as Covid-19, we are all part of something together. These moments represent original and unique perceptions through audio-visual methods and illustrate how the effects of a pandemic influence our built society. They introduce secondary sonic entities that no longer need to conform or hide because of the lack of human presence in these locations.
Popular locations such as Belfast City Hall and Queen’s University Belfast faced large sonic shifts when government restrictions were introduced. Listening to these locations reveals the lack of human presence at important times of day when normally people would be either leaving work or university on regular commutes or travelling in the opposite direction, entering the city to enjoy Friday-night plans or attend events, with people passing on the pavement.
The projects and research generated by R. Murray Schafer, Barry Truax, and Hildegard Westerkamp have shaped our sonic knowledge and perception of our sonic environments. This has been demonstrated with the World Soundscape Project (WSP), which has continued to direct sound artists and researchers in areas such as soundwalking and soundscapes (World Soundscape Project 2022). Soundwalking is a practice that focuses on the details of known and unknown sounds within one’s surroundings. Westerkamp (2001) talks about soundwalking as an act of attentive listening: whether this is to one’s body movement, selected objects in a space, or a general wider area, soundwalking is about focusing one’s attention to listen to sounds. This form of active engagement with sonic interactions creates personalised experiences, which inform our perceptual awareness and understanding of environmental changes. Regarding lockdowns, soundwalking brings forth new sonic relationships within our urban spaces because of the suppression of human presence. Therefore, global lockdowns and cities reverting to strict regimes or guidelines of human outdoor activity made it a time for novel experiences that could illuminate the sonic foundation and markers of a built society.
Even if we have visited these locations in the past, we may still recognise additional elements that distinguish a space with active listening. While not all sounds will be repeatable, a critical analysis will be performed each time when listening in the space. Truax (2001: 29) suggests that to avoid mixed judgement in a previously visited space, one should use the act of screening, in which one uses signal processing to analyse the sonic data and then with cognitive analysis use that information to interpret the sound(s) listened to. Only through noticing the differences can we understand the relationship of change to the sonic environment, even with our past listening activities in the space.
In addition to this act of screening sounds for experiential analysis, we also need to consider sounds and meaning. Schafer (1998) discusses how awareness of a sound drives a symbolic meaning, where the listener will place the importance of that sound in relation to its need for conservation or abatement. As individuals, perceptual listening occurs while soundwalking or engaging with other forms of sonic practice. Voegelin (2014) suggests that the individualised phenomenological experience of a person, event, and place will create different meanings for a sound. We each create, observe, react to, and reflect on our awareness of the internal and external information produced in our world. As we perform signal processing, cognitive analysis, sonic symbolism, and sound semantics, we render an influence that the sound(s) has on us and the environment we perceive. Sound is one of the forms of sensory information that we build to understand our relationship with the world, and events that occur change how we perceive those interactions.
The term ‘soundscape’ has different meanings depending on the context in which it is used: while this research uses ‘soundscapes’ to mean the representation of the acoustic environment, it also presents these sonic observations through digitally composed soundscapes referred to in this paper as ‘soundscape compositions’, in which field recordings are time-compressed into listening experiences. The term time-compressed is what I used to create sped-up listening from the original 5 min field recordings, the soundscape compositions are each 2 min durations. I follow Barry Truax's workflow, included in his Tutorial for the Handbook for Acoustic Ecology (2020) While he used longer recordings and time compressed them into shorter listening experiences. I have short field recordings due to circumstances but then create soundscape compositions that are even shorter.
In both instances, Raimbault and Dubois’s (2005: 340) definition would be appropriate to establish a foundation for soundscapes used in this research, which is that an individual’s subjective experience examines both the physical and socio-cultural content. The purpose of sonic collection and the method of representation is to have the ability to protect, highlight, explore, and understand the sound(s) of a place. Schafer (1994) discussed that sound collection and preservation have been included less than other forms of artwork, such as paintings, photos, and videos. This created a gap in human history in our understanding of sonic environmental changes and the evolution of urban life. However, soundscape practices have increased in urban settings because we now understand that they play a vital role in capturing sonic sensory information that informs sonic changes in human history and marks events in places (Martin 2018). Covid-19 has created a scenario in which we can collect the sounds of urban spaces to create a baseline for understanding the relationships of sounds without the interference of human activity. The value of soundscapes is not only to capture acoustic environments but also to explore the history of sounds within our surroundings. Furthermore, soundscapes provide the ability to hear the acoustic differences between the natural environment, urban life, and constructed urban society.
By relaying information from a soundwalk into a digital listening experience, a soundscape becomes an act of both information retention and sharing. Practice-based artistic research allows one to contribute to understanding through an act of inquiry from creative practice (Sullivan 2010: 97). Soundscape compositions are created by documenting soundwalks with field recordings that contain audio signatures or sound identifiers unique to a certain moment and/or location. With, Bell (2019: 16) also acknowledges that artistic research is discovery-led, where the aim is to explore rather than reproduce information. For a composed soundscape, the importance is to focus on informing, questioning, and creating discussions about recorded events. The digital soundscape exemplifies the sonic enquiry from the experienced soundwalk. However, Miller (2013: 729) defines the soundscape as subjective, where understanding a sound or total sound environment will not be interpreted exactly alike. While there is a difference between on-site and off-site experience, a soundscape composition gathers historical information about a time-sensitive event in our present history.
This research was devised through qualitative strategies of auto-hermeneutics. Gorichanaz (2017) states that auto-methodologies reveal an in-depth analysis of the self in personal and sensitive situations when research cannot focus on a group or on someone else. This approach allows for a focus on events transpiring rather than the imposition of a rigid research design that may hinder the possibility of new experiences or gaining knowledge. The strategies aid in developing a collection of information from interactions within the culture of a place and the comprehension of phenomenological events.
Each lockdown prompted an emphasis on the different applications of strategies and representation of the collected material. This is explained in each of the project's conceptual designs:
A. Lockdown 1 – observational recordings on separate events from the same site, e.g., Part 1 – Lockdown 1, Part 2 – Exit Strategy 2020
This is represented by the different listening and recording positions for each of the days on each site, which were caused by the regulations for distancing from others, either following protocols for one-way walking systems or being unable to record in the same position from the first recording due to people being in that spot. Yearly recordings will reflect (if possible) the same recording location, position, date, and time to create comparative analyses of the recordings made within Lockdown 1 and Exit Strategies 2020.
B. Lockdown 2 – observational recordings followed in a sequence within one week of events, e.g., Part 1 – Before lockdown, Part 2 – Start of lockdown, Part 3 – Deep lockdown
Here I was able to record in the same position since, following the first recording of Lockdown 2 – Part 1, there were no people to obstruct the recording position. This recording follows the transition of sonic events within similar times and is represented by side-by-side comparisons.
Each location was recorded for five minutes and edited/composed down to two-minute listening files, due to the amount of audible material usable within the original recordings. The audio device was held and could not cope with all the sonic activities in each location; therefore, some material was clipped by passing vehicles, wind, or other damaging audio qualities.
Lockdown 1 had ten locations (each recorded twice), producing twenty files, while Lockdown 2 had seven locations (each recorded three times), producing twenty-one files, for a total of forty-one finalised audio files for playback.
Throughout the research, there was progressive awareness that I, as the researcher, was part of the audio-visual experience within the urban spaces. My perception was influenced as an observer of the changes in each lockdown. The design approaches the phenomenon of events as a model to inform others of the sonic impacts and changes brought on by Covid-19, which made governments enforce regulations such as stay-at-home orders to slow down and ultimately attempt to end the spreading of the virus.
Using the restrictions as a recording guideline, the projects manifested into a larger comparative listening soundscape study focused on Lockdowns 1 and 2 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Due to the unexpected timing of the first lockdown, I could not conceive a full project idea and select locations before the lockdown began. As this was a total lockdown, the first locations were selected using the Visit Belfast Tourist Map (2019) to choose between various recognised public spaces. In Lockdown 1, the first recordings began on 27 March 2020 – five days after the start of the first lockdown – and ended on 28 August 2020, later in the exit strategy timeframe. Initially, with the assumption that this would be the only lockdown, the exit strategies lifting the lockdown during the summer of 2020 allowed me to re-record these same spaces and compare and contrast the gathered material.
The research presented here went through two phases: Lockdown 1, for which there were two separate dates for the same location, and Lockdown 2, for which there were three separate dates for the same location.
However, in October 2020, Northern Ireland announced a new lockdown (Lockdown 2) that would target the hospitality and education sectors and some public spaces. Therefore, it was possible to select locations and record them before, at the start of, and during Lockdown 2, which provided three different recordings. Some sites were recorded during both Lockdowns 1 and 2, due to their importance to the city and/or the affected sector when lockdowns were issued.
Material collection:
The project is formulated as an immediate response to the closures and lockdowns, beginning as a passive collection of sonic moments to capture and document the effects of Covid-19 in the city of Belfast, using field recordings and photographs to collect material focused on both phenomenological and socio-cultural observations. As government policies, restrictions, and lockdowns changed weekly, it was not possible to properly determine how long any of the lockdowns would last or how many lockdowns there would be. The recordings compare the different stages within each lockdown and build a collection of material to create shareable historical experiences.
Project Format:
- Follow government guidelines of one period of exercise per day, which allowed a walk to each area and the ability to record with a Zoom H6 with an XY capsule for a maximum duration of five minutes.
- Recordings were repeated twice for Lockdown 1 and thrice for Lockdown 2 – the projects were styled differently due to not having any recordings of locations before the start of Lockdown 1.
- Soundscape compositions were reduced to a two-minute listening experience due to the use of audible material gathered in the five-minute field recordings.
- Completed soundscape compositions with photos were then rendered on video as a form of a digital slideshow presentation.
- The files for the soundmaps were marked, and descriptions were filled to allow others to either listen to or perform their own soundwalks.
- The files were distributed or uploaded across multiple digital platforms, including my personal website/YouTube, soundmaps, and online art exhibitions.
Method of presentation:
Lockdown 1 – different positioning = different perceptual information = regulations of distancing from others
Lockdown 2 – as closely as possible on all three days recording in the same position and angle to capture the transition from before, at the start of, and during the lockdown
An interpretative analysis implies understanding the correlation between self and transpired events. Denzin (2002: 360) explains that phenomenological material from investigative research allows an interpreted analysis to create an understanding. Each lockdown shifted the balance between methodological strategies because of the different procedures when collecting material. However, interpretation after collecting the material is still possible, as it creates a reflection on both socio-cultural and self-observations. In the future, systematic self-observation (SSO), a structured format of detailing experiences, should be considered for real-time reflection on events (Rodriguez and Ryave 2002). This would aid in generating precise and detailed information that would create a cohesive model for comparison between sites and experiences.
This study was limited by:
- Recording constraints – I abided by Northern Ireland lockdown activity restrictions (stay-at-home rules):
A. One activity per day = one long walk (soundwalk) with five minutes to record and continue.
B. The same recording constraints were kept during exit strategy recordings. - No recordings of the sites before the lockdown (Lockdown 1).
- Uneven times and environmental conditions from each recorded day, meaning Lockdown 1 and Exit Strategy 2020 have the same locations but different times, whereas Lockdown 2 – Deep Lockdown needed to be recorded later due to rain. As mentioned, for the yearly review of recordings, I will attempt to record using all the same parameters of these initial recordings (date, time, place, and position).
- The placement of the recording changed with access points and consideration of closeness to people.
- No professional equipment to measure dB/SPL readings.
We are introduced to the locations after the start of Lockdown 1, putting us into conditions very different from those expected at popular visitor sites. The recordings took place on a Friday evening, which captures the city's state growing into a literal ‘ghost town’. This is represented by the lack of people usually in these recorded locations. It is like the city had frozen in time, with visual indicators including St. Patrick’s Day decorations still being displayed within some pubs or bars (since St. Patrick’s Day was cancelled). The emptiness of the streets, shopping districts, and schools and the general loneliness within a normally active city heightened the sonic interactions during the soundwalks, establishing new sonic markers from natural or industrial sounds.
As shown above, Image 3 represents the recordings from Arthur Square on 27 March 2020 (during Lockdown 1); the sonic activity was stagnant because of a dramatic decrease in human exchanges and the increased presence of natural or urbanised sounds. Slight flutters from birds, the noise of building generators, and minute sonic interventions from passers-by change the sonic representation of the space. However, this is not a usual phenomenon for a Friday afternoon because of the area's popularity. Image 4 represents the recordings from Arthur Square on 28 August 2020 (after Lockdown 1), in which there is a greater difference in sonic energy represented by human beings. Whether this is from small groups chattering or children playing around, the spectrogram reveals frequent variations of sonic energy masses. Image 3 reveals the sparseness between sonic events and the ability to locate, listen to, and understand the sonic context of sound in place; yet in Image 4, the human sound contributions mask the ability to distinguish all sounds, thereby creating a lack of sound localisation in the acoustic environment. It is only through proximity to the recorder or the higher frequency or intensity of a sound that we can perceive the elements of the space.
After Lockdown 1 was lifted in early summer 2020, re-recording these ten locations revealed changes to sociocultural and sonic relationships in these spaces. With regulations on distancing from people, queues to enter shops, one-way walking systems, and the reintroduction of loud human-generated sounds, these spaces were transformed by naturally needing to embrace the effects of Covid-19 and be a part of our new living conditions. After months of tranquillity and emptiness, human-generated sounds populated the urban settings once again. Now, a dense spectrum of sounds, with ongoing interactions and layers, drowned out the sounds that create the foundation of the sonic space, which, from being heard, had been pushed to a state of being unheard.
I took a different approach in Lockdown 2 since there was time to record pre-lockdown. By recording one day before the start of Lockdown 2, it was possible to create a basis for comparison and identify changes with the issuing of the lockdown. As this lockdown was aimed at the hospitality and educational sectors, some locations were recorded for both Lockdown 1 and Lockdown 2. However, the recordings highlighted the changes that occurred from a position of knowing a lockdown was coming. The seven locations reflected interactions outside pubs, bars, and Queen’s University Belfast and in the city centre to capture the changes before, at the start of, and deep in the midst of the lockdown.
Lockdown 2 was issued for 16 October 2020, to start at 6 p.m. This allowed a period to record as many locations as possible before and after 6 p.m. on the day before, on the day of, and a few days after the lockdown. Most notable were the recordings of Image 5, which represents the recordings from Dublin Road on 16 October 2020, in which one of the two bars remained open until 6 p.m. In the recordings of the day before and the day of the lockdown, we can hear the very last glassware being picked off picnic tables on the front porch of the Points bar and the last groups of people exiting the premises and entering the new lockdown. Due to the earlier closing times, social events such as drinking were compressed to an earlier time of the day, unlike the day before, on which bars were open during their regular hours. This created an urgency among some people to have a last outing in these types of spaces before they closed for the duration of the lockdown. This may be why similar sonic interactions from these bars were not heard the day before – just because of timing. Furthermore, field recordings preserve an important part of history and socio-cultural behaviours, as heard across these few examples.
The Lockdown 2 recordings establish a seven-day period of sonic changes enforced by the lockdown and the effect of Covid-19.
Another soundscape, Image 6, which is the recording of the Cathedral Quarter on 21 October 2020, demonstrates the sonic scarcity of one of the most populated night-life areas of the city. A sonic calmness emphasises the few sonic activities, such as footsteps or cars passing over the cobblestone lane. Recording in an area surrounded by buildings, sounds resonate from a greater distance, such as vehicle traffic that was perceivable due to the reverberations when entering the stone lane. This particular area in front of the Dirty Onion and Thirsty Goat bars attracts locals and tourists each night of the week; without the usual foot traffic and full-capacity bars, there is a change in the city’s dynamics and stimulation of environmental sounds.
These three days of recordings inform viewers that the urban space is affected by the presence of humans and that the sounds we generate manifest different renditions or experiences within a space. The closure of particular industries, buildings, or businesses removes a form of the diversity of sonic interactions in urban spaces. There is a level of sonic contribution from built-up urban spaces. Without human involvement, we shift our listening experience to the intricacies of many unknown or undervalued sounds that create a sense of place – what makes the urban space is based on the sensory information we retain or connect with. The three days of recording from each location also presented sonic shifts that depended on whether businesses decided to close from Thursday night to Friday evening. Businesses that decided to close a day before the lockdown reinstated the sense of emptiness, even if the business was across the street from another business that stayed open until 6 p.m. on Friday, 16 October. The duality of scenarios is superimposed by personalised decisions of when to close because of the lockdown; listening to the soundscapes will also show the diminishing presence of humans before, at the start of, and during the deeper part of the lockdown. These urban spaces create social connections and generate sonic interactions to unify, distinguish, and mark the identity of that space.
The main factors of soundwalking, documenting and field recording a location, and then creating soundscape compositions are three modes of investigating the phenomena surrounding the pandemic and how sound represents changes. While each has its own value and significance, soundwalking is an immediate listening to changes, that uses documenting/field recording to physically preserve changes and observations, followed by soundscape composition to provide alternative perspectives on past events, so that others can experience those changes. The combination of practices creates a multifaceted understanding, and most importantly, because sound is spatial and temporal, the moments of these particular events during the pandemic are non-repeatable. Sound, in this instance, is both a messenger of events to the self – indicating brief moments of changes induced by government lockdowns rules – and can be used creatively to provide an online and in-person understanding of the changes recorded during this time, with the various platforms used to share the compositions. The soundscape compositions retain and reflect on moments during the limited field recording sessions during the soundwalk, telling of the displacement of people from urban cities, languages, accents, spoken words from locals, and interactions within a place by people, urban material, or natural life.
Experiencing the transition from large amounts of human activities into overwhelmingly still spaces revealed the loneliness of recording the locations – almost as if I were the only person in existence. While I appreciated the sonic complexities and further enlightenment of sonic characteristics, I also felt out of place, especially as a foreigner who has only lived in the city for a short period. There were instances in which I questioned my presence and its impact on the sonic space: is my presence causing a change in sonic activity, for example, when someone walks around me or right in front of the recorder. My placement with the recorder also created another perception of what is being heard and understood. There is a gap between understanding the self and the effect on the space regarding the collection of material with the self in the space.
While listening back to the audio recordings made during the soundwalks, I am then compelled to re-experience isolation and listen to the audio observations of my recording device. The device and I are two modes of listening to space: its directionality compared to mine, its audio capabilities versus my hearing range, and my emotions versus its equanimity to the events transpiring. There is a personal complexity between the recordist, the recording device, and the recorded material. However, what is important is that during composing or the post-production phases, I relieve the experiences of isolation, distance from others, and the emptiness of a city and focus on listening to the natural and urban environment through the recordings. I reprocess the information to complete an unbiased (as best as possible) representation of the space and its sonic properties. The soundscape composition combines objective and subjective understandings of sonic shifts, a relationship of change. While these are fragments of the soundwalk and field recordings, they become an extension of myself and my position during the lockdowns.
Documenting these forty-one moments from both Lockdown 1 and Lockdown 2 begins to explore the sonic impact of when city closures end forms of social outings and interactions. An urban city is a place designed for human life and interaction; the government rules pushed us to abandon our sense of place within the routine of urban living. What we hear throughout these comparative soundscape compositions are brief moments highlighting the abnormality of our once-common sonic spaces. They allow us to listen to urban architecture, the sonic portrayal of human distance from one another (stay-at-home rules required us to be two metres away from others), and how new or unheard sounds can change the meaning of ‘our sonic spaces’. The pandemic, visually and physically experienced, was also a shift in our sonic experiences, which relay a sense of place and how sound is a thread to connect us in the present contextual moments.
The act of listening is an engagement with one’s surroundings, even in a space we have visited multiple times before. Soundwalking exposes the sensory information of a physical space by focusing our attention on the sonic relationships between known and unknown sounds. Considering works surrounding soundwalking and the soundscape compositions of Schafer, Westerkamp, and Truax, there is an underlying sense that active listening and engaging with one’s surroundings form a particular mindset to observe the sonic relationships within spaces analytically. The lockdown changed the dynamics of spaces I had visited in the past, in which the sonic attachments or relationships differed when there was no one around. Listening to the urban environment during these events varied because the sonic entities of the urban and natural landscape presented themselves in the foreground of the sonic stage and the context of historical events. Capturing my soundwalk with field recordings aided in documenting the sonic material particular to that moment. It creates distinctions between the changes experienced through the lockdowns and provides a historical listening experience in the form of soundscape compositions to share with others.
Acoustic ecology examines sonic relationships between humans and the environment. The events of Covid-19 altered the city environment and human routine in urban space; this is portrayed by the cycle of changes with the APS material. Truax (2019) discusses interactions within an acoustic space and audio properties that alter our perceived space at different times or during different events, and we will all have various perceived experiences of a space dictated by our attention, audio recall, position, and movement. Each recorded moment is unique and unrepeatable; however, by capturing the lockdown and exit strategy events, we can compare the sonic interactions caused by human presence in spaces affected by government rules. Ouzounian (2017) describes the common ideas surrounding a ‘healthy’ sounding urban environment, which would include human-generated sounds, the absence of which may lead us to think that a negative change to urban spaces or life has occurred. The soundscape compositions are a creative tool to share the effect of the pandemic, highlighting the sense of change through factors such as social-cultural or historical moments. They present new and unfamiliar moments of interaction in the public spaces of Belfast. Without or lacking human presence, we uncover the supporting sonic layers of our built urban environment. As social beings, the disappearance of our interactions repurposes spaces, which are now momentarily balanced between urban and natural sounds: for example, generators hum in alleyways when we would normally hear the voices of group gatherings, seagulls claim footpaths, and the decrease of vehicle traffic within the city gives a sense of quieter times. However, as new cycles of lockdowns and ever-changing safety measures are issued, it is difficult to predict the development of these new sonic identities and relationships to our environments.
In this project, soundscape composition embodies a soundwalk that has been experienced – there is a difference in the recall, level of detail, and overall sense of presence. This is not to dismiss the capabilities of immersive audio, such as binaural or ambisonics recordings; however, in this project, where only stereo recordings were achievable, it is difficult to share the same perceived listened-to experience. The soundscape becomes more of a form of documentation, such as a photo or video, albeit largely focused on the sonic proprieties that were listened to. As Westerkamp (1999) explains, a soundscape composition can be an artistic expression of sonic documentation by featuring unprocessed sounds that inform the listener about the properties and context of the recorded environment. The purpose of soundscape compositions in my project is to share the sonic knowledge of the changes witnessed in these spaces and to understand the impacts of lockdowns in our urban environments. Being in each of these locations on different days, with different sets of sonic activities and levels of presence of humans, prompts one to reflect on what all these experienced sounds mean or should mean. A level of self-knowledge also challenges the sounds listened to: what have I heard, and would it stimulate the same sonic recognition in another? A conflict between recording and being the recordist manifests its challenges in activities such as soundscapes and soundwalking: do I hear what I want to hear, and what will those who listen to the soundscapes hear?
This prompts philosophical approaches to sonic studies, such as acoustemology, hermeneutics, and phenomenological research. As the recordist who is first-hand experiencing the sounds, I intend to collect and capture sound as accurately as possible, so others have then an opportunity to listen to the particular moment. However, Voegelin (2014) discusses phenomenological possibilism with soundscapes, which is a personalised sonic body of information relating to the actual world and how it is tied to the perception of the landscape rather than being an opposing entity of that space. Sharing our personalised experiences in soundscapes, such as in the Covid-19 event, allows a historical moment to be interpreted and perceived differently by all human beings in these spaces and by the listener in an online context. The listened or heard sound renders perceptual information to the listener, defining its meaning and relationship with the space; additionally, this is the cycle of any soundscape with any listener. The context or meaning of the sound(s) will define an alternative listening experience.
In Schulze’s (2016) approach to acoustic or sonic knowledge through sonic acoustemology, sounds represent meaning, which affects our socio-cultural understanding or awareness within a space. As an outsider to Northern Ireland, my background, education in sonic arts, and cultural upbringing possibly introduce alternative sonic meanings to these spaces. The attention or engagement with a sound will define my experience, which does not necessarily mean that a sound has a parallel meaning or definition to that of another listener to these recorded pieces. One’s position, directionality, and even attention to the elements are perceived differently. The recordings show my perceived sonic interaction with space, not someone else’s. The sonic knowledge may be shared to encourage or incite discussion, yet we all render sound interpretations with different meanings. A sound heard does not always signify a communal sound interpretation, depending on a person’s concept of sonic knowledge and the definition they will attribute to that heard/listened sound.
This is further represented by employing techniques to depict differences in the self's observations and the sociocultural dynamics of these events. The project uses art as storytelling to enable wider discussions and accessibility of site information (Grierson and Brearley with Barnacle and others 2009). I chose the sites for Lockdown 1 from the Visit Belfast map based on my past personal relationships with the spaces. My connectivity and impression of the space are recorded by my actions of being there at a specific time, recording and observing the natural place. This created multiple lenses through which to understand a phenomenon – not only through textual commentary but also by adding sensory information. Conversely, in Lockdown 2, my thinking process involved exploring the city by locating popular hospitality and landmark areas. Each lockdown was presented in its unique style within a sonic-journalism approach to highlight the events and self-engagement within the spaces. Government regulations and personal safety directed the approaches to recording the material; however, each lockdown can still be compared on macro and micro levels.
The various modes of distributing the soundscapes act as a method to inform others of the changes faced within my community and showcase the pandemic through multiple perceptual lenses. We were immediately forced to use only virtual environments for learning, entertainment, and socialisation. Researchers, artists, and general enthusiasts were all invited to be participants in providing their material as a response to their surroundings and learning more about the changes faced by the global lockdowns. The audio-photographic material preserves a small moment of Lockdown 1 and 2 and the exit-strategy experience. Llano (2018) mentions that sound maps are more than an online platform hosting audio recordings, they are an opportunity to encode a sonic experience that maps people and the social behaviours attached to their surrounding sonic spaces. Sound maps such as Pete Stollery’s Covid-19 Sound Map (2020), Image 8, create a sense of connectivity to local and global spaces where we can digitally participate in sonic experiences amid urban life lockdowns. While this sound map acted as a time capsule of one year, it is a method of sharing and experiencing the sonic world during the events of a global pandemic. As the recordings do not adhere to a consistent structure or subjectivity, it becomes a subjective experience and personal objective that the uploader has decided to share with the world, portraying their own experience.
As a platform for sharing sonic awareness and knowledge of the spaces we live in, sound maps act as a communal project to inform and document the changes from the effects of a global pandemic. For instance, on Radio Aporee (2019), which has over sixty thousand sounds uploaded, each of the files is automatically stored on the Internet Archive (2014), a website that attempts to document all the internet’s digital artefacts. This act of preservation instils the conversation of our modern world through audio recordings and generates another layer of information for all to reflect on and question. The forty-one audio files from my contributed maps generate a timeframe of Belfast during Covid-19; they can be used to understand the sonic changes caused by pandemic regulations and the transitional periods between each lockdown. Other places that have been recorded and uploaded to sound maps may differ in all aspects of their lockdowns, dates, lengths, and levels of restrictions; however, we can comparatively hear the differences between the settings of our environments and understand the global effect we are challenged with.
In addition, the multiple recordings of locations from each of the lockdowns provide site-specific information. This makes it possible to review material from a historical perspective to understand the state of Belfast during Covid-19. Lane and Parry (2006) discuss the role of audio-visual recordings in contributing to the historical collection, preserving an experienced moment that others can reflect on. The project was built around and abided by government instructions for a person’s daily exercise, demonstrating the restrictions all citizens endured. The audio and photos captured varied sensory information that can be explored not only through the website but also by visitors to each of the sites. As a body of art, viewers can utilise the recordings as an audio-visual guide to relive these memories. These methods of dissemination in the digital age enable others to connect with locations they may or may not be able to visit. These forms of distribution in a digital age permit others to connect to spaces they may or may not ever be able to experience. The act of sharing knowledge through the digital means of soundscapes momentarily allows a listener to be somewhere else or to connect to other people during a period in which isolation was overwhelming for a year.
This exposition discusses certain sonic impacts imposed by Covid-19 and government regulations trying to combat the virus with regulations such as stay-at-home orders. This effectively emptied urban spaces in Belfast of typical human sounds and allowed natural and urban sounds to become a foreground listening experience. Using a qualitative approach of auto-hermeneutics, this project collects moments from Lockdown 1 and Lockdown 2 in the form of sonic-journalism through soundscape compositions distributed via online platforms and soundmaps. There are also variations of the creative project in the form of audio-photographic representations to visually guide listeners on the impacts and changes in each of the fifteen locations.
While we may typically be a passer-by in a particular space, soundwalking allows us to direct our attention to the sonic materials that build our environment and to consider contextual information. All types of sonic entities – natural, industrial, technological, seen or unseen – create a sonic version of reality in which we perceive our own or shared world. At a time such as Covid-19, we are introduced to a change and the opportunity to experience other sounds that have been hidden or overtaken by denser sounds, predominantly the presence of humans and the sounds generated by their activities, such as walking, talking, shouting, jumping, running, gathering, and so on … The volume of human-generated sounds overpowers many of the sonic entities of space. Sounds are constantly overlooked and underappreciated; sometimes, it is even forgotten that they exist at all. The lockdown has created solitude within an urban environment; the soundscape compositions in this project attempt to display this ever-changing state of urban life.
This project provided a new opportunity to connect or reconnect to our immediate surroundings, spaces, or environment. Sound is part of our senses, which enables perceptual connections with the elements within a space to understand our positioning and involvement with the world. It allows us to conjure new understandings of how our built and natural worlds interact with one another. The soundscape of Belfast changed from a loud and active urban lifestyle to one of quietness and stillness. The sonic relationships changed throughout all the variations of the lockdowns, creating entirely new sonic listening experiences where each sound had an opportunity to be redefined within a space, and its importance to the space’s sustainability could be reassessed. While soundwalking allows for an in-the-moment experience, which is immersive and self-experienced, recording or capturing soundscapes permits a compressed soundwalk experience to transfer and share these experiences with others.
This project represents documentary work that generates a timeframe of events, rendering different progressions and movements of Covid-19 and its effects in urban spaces. The perceptions and observations of our sonically changed urban spaces reveal the integral foundation of the sonic environment. Natural and urban sounds are mostly secondary components when human sounds are present; conversely, when cities are emptied of human sounds, we can explore the crucial layers of our sonically built society. The unnoticed sounds are heard, deepening our understanding of the sonic identity we have overlooked for generations. Covid-19 has forced a unique moment in time, emptying popularised areas of our city and transforming our use of those spaces. The collection of sounds documents the state of our human history during this global pandemic and the sonic markers of certain urban spaces, allowing the gathered audio material to be reviewed in the future.
Furthermore, the research demonstrates that as participants in an urban space, we become a part of that listening experience. Each person will have a different interpretation of what a sound signifies and vice versa. This is due to our perception, understanding, analysis, and engagement with sounds in our environment. On a global scale, we can now listen to multiple recordings of individuals’ perceptual experiences on soundmaps and other online platforms. This connects us on another sensory level: we can use sound to inform, educate, and entertain.
Finally, the future of this research will be determined by the longevity of the Covid-19 lockdowns and/or the lifting of all restrictions in Northern Ireland. The research will continue with a yearly review of recorded locations based on Lockdown 1 since Lockdown 2 was a smaller study of changes within one week of a new lockdown order. The recordings will follow the same time, recording duration, dates, and physical positioning to create as accurately as possible repeatable material for comparison.
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