There is a little window in the attic of a Dalmatian villa from the early middle ages overlooking the dreamy cascade landscape of downtown Dubrovnik.

It's early June, 8 am. A melody of old Mediterranean terracotta roofs plunging into each other is nursing a soft morning light. The polyphony of ages embedded in the stone makes the town glow from its neutron core. No corners are mislaid, and the fortress is keeping us safe.

The window is slightly recessed, almost on the corner with Stradun, and a person with fine jumping skills could easily reach the roof of the church across the narrow street. It's Sunday, and the bells from the various towers across town are spilling their gongs.

I needed to sleep a bit more. But the grinding machinery of tourism has its own agenda. Savagely squeaking swallows and the morning congregations of seagulls sound like a pastorale compared to the town’s growling bowels. Air conditioning units, pumps, kitchen ventilation, garbage trucks, delivery vehicles, wheels, and trolleys of all sorts. I could not help but be fascinated by how a landscape of such beaming beauty can exist in this hideous soundscape.

In all of its ugliness, the soundscape of Dubrovnik still hides so much contemporaneity. The large ventilation unit drones are textural and multiphonic. Anarchy in the town’s electrical grid is constantly buzzing from nooks and crevices like some robo-brute. Sounds of the wagons for garbage collection, and the rivers of inbound and outbound suitcases are bouncing over the stone streets like a constant percussive development. I enjoyed it a lot.

But perhaps we should give it a second thought. The noise in which certain Mediterranean architectural marvels are soaked due to uncontrolled mass tourism is a “silent” killer. Of the environment, and of the local culture and dignity.

I stepped out of the building that morning, and straight in front of my nose on the neighbour’s door, there was a sign:

PLEASE KEEP SILENT. 

--
released June 18, 2023
all rights reserved

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An ongoing electro-acoustic project beginning in 2009

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Mark Vernon is a Glasgow based sound artist who works with found tapes and acousmatic presence. His work explores themes of magnetic memory, audio archaeology, voyeurism and nostalgia. 

His solo music projects have been published through labels including Kye, Glistening Examples, Flaming Pines, Misanthropic Agenda, Gagarin, Sonoris, Granny, Psychetropes, Persistence of Sound, Flag Day, Entr’acte, Discrepant, Futura Resistenza, Vice de Forme, Calling Cards and Canti Magnetici. 

He co-runs and curates Glasgow art radio station, Radiophrenia and has produced programmes for stations internationally.

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