Jessica Thompson

subwayMU’zik
An informal acoustic inventory of Toronto subway stations that play classical music over their PA systems  (2005)
 
Warden subway station
Running time: 00:03:00
 
subwayMU’zik is a social investigation into the relationship between official policy and individual agency and the way music is used within public space to control behavior.
 

Status: Currently available
Inventory Number: thom.05.001

In 1998, after 2 stabbings at different Scarborough-area subway stations, the Toronto Transit Commission began to broadcast classical music in Kennedy, Warden, Victoria Park, Main and Bathurst stations in hopes of discouraging loitering among youth from local high schools, and gang-related activity.
 
The project consists of field recordings made with binaural microphones of the music playing in the stations during rush hour. In the recording made in the bus kiosk in Warden station, the music becomes almost obliterated by the sound of departing buses and the overlapping conversations of the high school students hanging out in the station.
 
subwayMU’zik will be part of dp003 ‘sound art project’, a limited edition CD and fanzine through Disparc, University of Dundee Exhibitions Department, Dundee, Scotland.