The territories of music in public space: scenes from Warsaw and Lisbon

Sound is a shared medium that connects bodies of all kinds within a given space. As such, sound creates communities in which everyone can be both listener and soundmaker. Nevertheless, this shared sonic space is rarely without conflict or dissonance, and for this reason it demands attention to its territorial dimension. In this chapter, we approach the territorial dimension of sound by analysing the production of territories through musical practices in public space. We draw on Brighenti and Kärrholm’s territoriology to approach the territories of music as cycles of deterritorialization and reterritorialization that stem from assemblages of materialities, practices, and representations, and draw on Haesbaert’s concept of multiterritoriality to reveal the multiple interactions between musical and other everyday territories. We take as a lens into this discussion two non-fictional vignettes of musical practices in everyday public space. The first vignette focuses on the musical installation of Chopin’s works in public benches in the streets of Warsaw, Poland. In contrast, the second vignette describes a sonic conflict in which a local resident used loud music playing in sound columns to expel street musicians from a public square in Lisbon, Portugal. While the first vignette demonstrates that music can produce territories by diluting existing sonic and bodily boundaries, the second vignette shows the potential of music to territorialize spaces by establishing sonic boundaries.