The Sound Of Memories
Every city has its own distrinct sounds. Moon Mokgoro pieces together the melodies and memories of Johannesburg.
By Moon Mokgoro
Published
I live in a city, and cities are loud. Silence is rare; movement is never-ending, and spaces are occupied by familiar and unfamiliar sounds: voices, footsteps, birds, traffic, instruments, sounds of movement, and endless stories. Sound will permanently be attached to these spaces. I cannot remember anything without remembering what I heard, without remembering every piece of sound around me. My memories are made of sound.
Combining sound with visual memory is a form of interrogation, another way of identifying the intricate details captured and experienced at that moment, that minute, that second.
Parties, strangers voices. Parks, birds. Roads, traffic. Libraries, whispers. Galleries, explanations, voices wandering. Meditation, gentle breaths.
Many avant-garde and experimental filmmakers use sound in place of voice in their films, moving away from the conventional form of dialogue-based storytelling. These are the sounds they associate with the footage they've captured. In "Outer Space" by Peter Tscherkassky, the audio used in the film fits perfectly with its visual chaos and unconventional storytelling. The sounds cause discomfort and leave you unsettled but perfectly align with the film. Some scenes would not have felt as intense without these doom-impending sounds. In "Blue" by Derek Jarman, against a plain blue background, he weaves the color to stories, songs, the sounds of waves, conversations, and memories of friends - he turns this shade of Blue into a visual representation of that. Though there is the use of voice and dialogue, the main takeaway is the unconventional use of audio in the film. Here, audio becomes a picture, and somehow, you can hear the picture come alive through the intended use of sound. Will I ever see that shade of Blue and not hear his voice, not hear his music, not remember his stories?
Sound will forever be attached to most memories, which is part of what transcends them - what makes them beautiful and brings them to life. Sound is a welcome reminder of all our senses. And now, blue sounds so beautiful to me.