2021-07-04 -Commercial Court-Exit Strategies Summer 2021

Commercial Court | 54.601963, -5.927107 | Time: 6:23pm

Description:
Recording of the bars being reopened in the famous bar district in town. People are sitting and chatting away on outdoor sitting arrangements. There are tourists and locals walking around, some taking photos, others discussing the appeal of the bars. There is some background glassware being heard and muffled bar chats.

Overall project:
In the midst of a global pandemic, countries and cities have become literal ghost towns. Once flustered with sounds from human activities, this has now been overtaken from the subtle industrial, mechanical, and natural environment sounds. This project began on Friday, March 27, 2020, during Lockdown 1, after a year of different lockdowns, we were now in Lockdown 3 on Saturday, March 27, 2021. These recordings reflect the one year of changes due to Covid-19 on our urban spaces. Re-capturing the same first 10 locations from a year prior.

The project maintains the same recording constrictions of using my one daily activity of walking around the city of Belfast and quickly recording various local or touristic points of interest with aid of the VisitBelfast’s visitor map. Each of the soundscapes lasts two minutes because of the strict lockdown measurements set by the government, only allowing us to be outside for limited periods of time for essential grocery shopping, a daily activity, work, or health-related. Once this lockdown is officially lifted, there will be an additional soundscape recording to compare and reflect the changes of these areas such as the Exit Strategies recorded in Summer 2020. There is also the attempt to try and record the locations as close to the same times as the year before.