A magnified moment of attention

As one of the world's most famous sacred spaces, Notre Dame in Paris has a very particular effect even on the non-religious, perhaps close to Stendhal Syndrome. But it's not just about the space itself, it's about sharing that awe with thousands of other people concurrently, as an endless snaking line of people enters the space, each to have their own significant experience, whether it's of secular beauty or sacred majesty. The drone of shuffling feet and low conversation, amplified by thousands of people in such a huge space, can be sonically overwhelming, however. In this piece, I wanted to transform that hubbub created by the presence of people into something that did greater justice to the majesty of the location, a kind of ambient sonic offering back to the physical space in Notre Dame. Here, the background hum of people becomes an ambient pulse that magnifies attention rather than distracting from it, while the periodic reminders to "shhhh" and be silent punctuate the piece as a constant reminder of the presence of control and administration, even as we communally share an all too rare moment of the sacred. The piece is a magnification of the type of attention we only pay when we are shocked out of ourselves by beauty, and by scale. Notre Dame cathedral soundscape reimagined by Cities and Memory.