A non-verbal sound design piece that translates the struggle of living a normal life, while dealing with the memory of a past trauma and its triggers. Its purpose is to describe, without using any words, the pain and loneliness of being hurt, acknowledging the reality of mental suffering as something as serious and debilitating as any other type of physical pain. By using binaural sound, it suggests a better understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder, from the sufferer’s mind’s point of view.

The character’s mind gets overwhelmed by the constant stimuli, shuts off or filters the outside world in defense, and tries to cope with the uncontrollable urge to revisit the memory of the traumatic event. Sound triggers pull the character’s perspective away from the present moment into snippets of her memory. By choosing what to hear and process, her mind seems to have its own voice.

The binaural effect has been created by using an audio editing technique developed through personal research. The recording was made without a binaural installation.

“Santé” is an auto production awarded at Grand Prix Nova 2018, Bucharest.
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Ana Teodora Popa is a sound engineer and composer, passionate about theater, radio and innovation.