Anonymous Submitter:

"I share these sounds believing that they can help amplify important issues and subjectivities, making them resonate even more broadly. The microphone is not a hunting device but an amplifier helping bring to the fore that which is structurally pushed to the background. Both sounds have no singular authorship. They are results of distributed agency, energy and will of many people who care and persevere. This is why this submission is made anonymously. It is also made to complicate the perception of a field recording as an artifact generated with a genius and outstanding technical skills mastered by an individual professional. However individualistic and autonomous it seems to be, the act of pressing the record button is about establishing relationships with and between diverse actors whose actions co-constitute that sonic imprint.

Sounds and their recorded forms exist always in relation to events, places and actors they are concerned with but also to each other. Never autonomously. Thus, this double submission sheds light on two interrelated forms of resistance to violence, structural racism discrimination and unbalanced participation in a public space.

This first recording is a recording of radio communication between NYC police after a series of demonstrations following the tragic killing of George Floyd. It was recorded on the 2nd of June, 2020 via one of the services spread among activists on social media. Listening to police communication has in 2020 become a social and activist practice, a form of surveilling the system in order to make it accountable and gather proof of misconduct. Ever since that eavesdropping practice was mobilized as a resistance technique, the police in many cities in the US announced that they will introduce new encryption solutions so that their communication won't be subject to interception anymore. This move causes that this recording accounts for a disappearing sound and practice. It would, however, be much more hopeful if such sounds were vanishing not because of being hidden from the public but as the effect of the dismantling of social and racial injustice."

Sound of the Year: NYC Police Communication During Black Lives Matter Demonstrations - Anonymous

I would like to share with you the most intense sound memory of this year 2022. It was September 17th and I was in London with my friend Marco for musical engagements during the London fashion week. The previous day we had played for Jeff Garner's fashion show, an American designer who brings ecological ideas to the world of couture.
In those days, as you may remember, London was enveloped in a sad and obsequious aura towards its longest-lived majesty, Elizabeth the Second, an absolute icon. This audio document tells of a small part of the long walk Marco and I took that day, up and down the Thames, beside the immense crowd that snaked through the city. Here, in this audio, we're standing on Westminster Bridge. The audio quality is low (the recording took place through our mobile phones), the day was clear and windy and you can hear it. 
Nonetheless, it is exciting to retrace those steps, closing your eyes. 
In the middle of the bridge you will hear a bagpipe player sing his farewell to the queen, amidst the voices of the people all around while the Union Jack flag at half-mast sparkles billowing in the blue sky.

When I took the plane back to Italy I bought a copy of TIME magazie. The copy had an iconic image of the Queen on the cover. I bought this for my sister who is a fan of Hers. This audio document is a bit like that cover: a memory of historical significance albeit in a small everyday life.

WESTMINSTER BRIDGE FAREWELL HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH CROWD AND BAGPIPE PLAYER

soundwalkers

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