On July 23, 2020, a team of international researchers in seismology released a paper detailing their finding that Coronavirus shutdowns had led to “the longest and most coherent global seismic noise reduction in recorded history” (New York Times).  Seemingly overnight, humanity had stopped moving and the resulting silence was measurable on a global scale.

For this commission of an online audio artwork by Ma-Yi Studios in New York City, I collected data from seismographs around the world as well as recordings of quarantine living and numerous other inputs and blended it together to create a personalized sonic experience, asking what did the earth sound like during the pandemic? Has it changed—and has it changed us? Inspired in part by the writings of Canadian composer and musical thinker R. Murray Schafer, I devised Rest as an audio meditation inspired by this shared moment of worldwide Covid lockdowns, exploring the meaning of silence and space in our lives.

After its release on Ma-Yi Studios’ platform in early 2021, Rest found an unexpectedly wide audience. As of the end of its first year online, Ma-Yi had reported over 200,000 streams. While it’s hard to measure its impact in any traditional critical terms, the realization that this very personal and idiosyncratic piece had found an audience was gratifying.