Silence Please

Abstract

Publication of a sound recording

The recorded sound is a field recording that took place in the Sistine Chapel in Rome during a busy day.

This is a high rectangular space with a vaulted ceiling, a floor area of 41 by 13 meter and a height of 21 meter. During the recording the space was filled with people passing by the murals that cover the entire ceiling and all the walls. There is a buzz of developing conversations that fill the space with sound.

Movement is constraint in these conditions. One becomes part of a larger constellation of bodies. The architecture of the space allows for people to enter only through a relatively small doorway on a far side of the space. They then move on until they finally exit on the opposite far side, again through a relatively small doorway. The crowd moves in different speeds, revealing certain patterns in the motion of bodies that navigate the space.

A few guards in uniform function as supervisors and oversee the behaviour and movement of the public. They ask loudly for silence or shush people with an amplified sound system.

The duration of the soundtrack is a little under 1 hour. The sound is recorded 4 times simultaneously by 4 individuals, each carrying a portable recorder with an external microphone. They took in different positions in the space and moved around without an agreed pattern. The 4 recordings are un-interrupted and un-edited. They are brought together and synchronised in one stereo track.

The recording is an observation of human behaviour in the context of organisation of space.

As of December 14, 2017 the soundtrack is available on (self-released) cassette tape.