10. MEMORIA CONDIVISA (Collective Memory)

Stefano Calvanese

MEMORIA CONDIVISA (Collective Memory)

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MEMORIA CONDIVISA (Collective Memory)

Stefano Calvanese

The idea of preserving memory is closely tied to the senses—hearing above all. As strange as it might seem, memory is made of sounds we can summon and replay, almost like an act of exhumation. We dig deep until we recover that memory, composed of spontaneous sounds, accidental clashes of sonic events that turn into vivid imagery— colours, shapes, smells, and tastes. This process becomes easier when there’s a stimulus that triggers the digging. It doesn’t have to be your own experience—what matters is that the right sonic ingredients are there to spark a sense of identification. The tone of a voice, the creak of a chair that sounds just like the one in your old room, a pop song playing faintly in the background—and suddenly you’re back in a memory shaped perfectly in your image.

Listening to the audio file "July 9th 2023 my brother's studio 12:57 PM" and reading its description, left a strong impression on me. It connected me to something deeply personal, incredibly intimate. In my view, that recording (and the decision to upload it to a public platform, to share something so private with everyone and allowing them to process such an extraordinary event) perfectly captures the idea of preserving memory through sound.

It brought back a teenage memory of when my uncle played us a recording of his mother’s young voice—my grandmother—captured on tape when he first got access to an audio recorder.

Later, I stumbled upon a recording of thunder where the sound reflected in an unusual way, almost like the echo of an explosion. A rare phenomenon, but to me, it recalled the simplicity of those days spent with my best friend, photographing and recording lightning and thunder with an Arduino and some improvised gear.

From there, I kept going: the recording of an unusual instrument, a rare capture of lava expanding (I live about twenty kilometers from Mount Vesuvius), a father granted access to his daughter’s dance rehearsal, the memory of a moment shared among friends and so on.

This composition uses the following sounds: