Comments by Giovanni Allegretti and Pedro Quintela (CES)

Twelfth session session of the «Deconfined Talks» seminar series. Noise has long since been inescapably prominent in the soundscape of modern cities. Since the times of deep alienation, this "social world of noise" has, over the course of the 20th century, been generally condescending and socially accommodating. The "unwanted sound", as Murray Schafer refers to noise, has found one of its main accomplices in the futuristic art field. In painting, music and poetry - with U. Boccioni, L. Russolo and Álvaro de Campos - many artists "invited" the city to naturally accept the noise of machines and engines as a sign of modern vanguardism. Others however - from Th. Lessing to Julia Rice - contested the high price to be paid for the new urban condition. Nevertheless, colonialism proceeded with the sound globalisation of noise that would anticipate political globalisation. Today, noise is both a cultural trait used as a perverse denunciation of the presence of the "other" or as a powerful device that silences dissent. In both situations, this "social world of noise" represents an unusual territory of social and political disputes that invite in-depth sociological research that is beyond the technicality of its mapping  in the various zones of cities. The strange silence with which COVID 19 covered European cities has led many groups and organisations, out of nostalgia or demonstration of power, to unexpected celebrations of the gradual return of urban noise. As a rule, without noticing that this urban silence denounced, this time, such a serious functional breakdown of the "living machine" whose remedy requires a very profound "repair".

The open access «Deconfined Talks» seminars focus on the pandemic, its implications on the multiple dimensions that concern the CES community, among others topics currently worth discussing.

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