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  1. Culture
11 December 2011updated 27 Sep 2015 4:03am

The sound of the strike

Pickets, police and protestors on 30 November.

By Chris Wood

On 30 November, the UK saw the biggest strikes in a generation. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of London and other cities against a background of ongoing activist occupations and a summer of riots and civil disobedience.

The sounds you will hear in the SoundCloud below were recorded over 12 hours on that day, from 7 in the morning until 7 at night. We start with Occupy London’s dawn demonstration in Liverpool Street station and move on through morning pickets by electricians, journalists and health workers and an evening picket outside the Bfi. We stop to hear Paul Gilroy at a teach out in front of the London School of Economics before moving through the trade union march. The piece concludes outside Panton House where activists storm the offices of the highest paid CEO in the country. We also hear the sounds of plain clothes undercover officers being identified inside the subsequent police kettle.

The piece was recorded on binaural microphones and is best listened to on headphones which replicate the sense of space and depth.

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November 30 Strike and Demonstration Soundscape by Whirring Cat  

Chris Wood is a sound artist and designer based in London. His work can be found at https://wordthecat.com

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