Memory is a subjective recollection of the past, each time used, information being modified. An echo is a distortion of a sound that travels and bounces off surfaces, but can it be seen as a blurry image of the past? 
The two-part project, sound piece and publication, began by speculating on the linearity and circularity of time, how it affects places, and how memory works. 
Small villages like Șona, from Brașov county, Romania, are places where time seems to flow more slowly. Villagers live their lives according to a solar rhythm, to the length of the day, to nature and its seasons. Their rare extraordinary happenings are remembered through stories passed on orally. By researching the local myths, legends, and conspiracy theories, the collection came out rather fragmentary, blurred by the locals’ more present-day, recent history and media-affected interest.
To clarify the vague and overlapping view, I’ve used text-to-image Artificial Intelligence as a consulting of a collective memory, trained on billions of images. The more probable the information, the better the results. Like in a game of hot and cold, I feed the AI with the fragments and images taken in Șona, going through art history as the scenes dictated, modifying the description after each result, and getting slowly to the bigger picture.
These filtered-out echoes are singing a legend beyond the known past, about destiny, the passage of time, the circularity of history, and human nature, bringing me back to the intent of my research.
If the sound piece is a boat trip that ends where it starts and vice versa, hearing along distant bits and parts of more clear and more distorted information, the book focuses on these details, filtering and recomposing them.

Alexandru Mihai Budeș
Developed for Sounds Like a Book 2022

Alexandru Mihai Budes