Sounding Montreal During Covid-19

13 ECHOES

What you need: Mobile phone + headphones/earphones Instructions: Go to one of the 10 locations on the map (listed below), walk into the circle, and audio will play (can press pause/play also).

Description: After a year and two lockdowns in Belfast, Northern Ireland, I was able to return home to Montreal, Canada for a short period of time. During this time, I wanted to expand on my research practices of Covid-19_Belfast City and take a soundscape recording approach to the lockdowns in some areas of Downtown and Old Port Montreal. The entirety of Quebec faced different zones of lockdowns; Montreal was in its second lockdown since September 2020 with a home curfew being ordered in early January 2021. I kept the same recording constraints of only capturing five minutes of audio and composing two-minute listening experiences. Places were chosen by a similar approach of using the VisitBelfast Tourist Map while in Belfast, whereas in Montreal this was the Carte Touristique Officielle/Official Tourist Map 2019-2020. Locations focused on touristic places, hospitality sectors, retail sectors, educational areas, and public urban spaces. Parts 1 and 2 focus on the same three crossroads along the famous Saint-Catherine St in Downtown Montreal, Part 3 on Old Port Montreal, and Part 4 on the Quebec Home Alert for the curfew put in place.

Currently, there are 13 audio files on the map and 10 areas recorded: 1.Guy Street 2.Crescent Street 3.Peel Street 4.Le Petit Dep on Saint-Paul 5.Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal 6.Place Jacques Cartier 7.Marché Bonsecours 8.Promenade du Vieux-Port 9.Saint Catherine Street 10.Quebec Home Alert – Used Laval City Hall as map location

This project reflects through an auditory and sonic art perspective how the city sounds like without the presence of humans or the normal amount of human density in popular areas in public spaces of Montreal.

Post-experience Survey: https://forms.office.com/r/F7Jyd9Xc6f

Information Creator: Georgios Varoutsos, PhD student at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen’s University Belfast Website: https://georgiosvaroutsos.com/ Research Project: https://georgiosvaroutsos.com/covid-19/

Georgios Varoutsos

I am a sonic artist and researcher from Montreal, Canada. I am currently completing my PhD studies at the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC) at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland. As an artist, I explore the field of sound through an extensive range of projects and performances. My audio creations derive from different inspirations such as field recordings, digital recordings, amplified sound materials, audio processing, synthesis, and experimental techniques. Presently working on research consisting of spatial audio, urban arts, sound studies, sonic arts, and socially engaged arts. I am also focusing on the combination of sonic material within immersive environments through VR, AR, AAR, and spatial audio techniques.