Colliding Horizons: Sonic dialogues between Beirut and London

Reflecting upon an exchange between London and Beirut that began in March 2018, led by Recomposing the City and Theatrum Mundi, this paper explores how history continues to make itself heard in the sonic fabric of a city, and questions the role of artistic intervention within this for processing urban social memory and reshaping a city's sounds into new forms. Becoming sensitive to the differences between insider and outsider in a city like Beirut, where the Civil War and its aftermath literally resonate, the paper addresses what, for many Lebanese artists, appears to be a crucial question: how to intervene in the incredibly rich, yet historically cacophonous soundscape of Beirut in a way that attempts neither to 'preserve' nor 'silence' it; how to harness Beirut's cavernous 'excess of sound' such that sonic dissonance can continue to thrive, while also being reconfigured along new lines of invention.