OverPast: Disruptive Listening in Urban Pasts and Presents is a comparative urban transmission arts project that explores acts of overpass removal between Syracuse, New York and Rome, Italy. The project frames overpasses (also called overbridges or flyovers) as spaces where and when the promises of past urban transformation collide with contemporary calls for reparations and real estate driven promises of just cities. It compares the removal process of the Syracuse I-81 Viaduct with the removal and redevelopment ambitions around Rome’s Tangenziale Est. The project experiments with guerilla short wave radio transmissions of audio collages of overpass field recordings, found sound, archival radio, and interviews. This methodology is a materialization of my interests and research in sound, urban mundanity, and ruptures with definitive storytelling.

The photograph of Jess Myers was taken by Farideh Sakhaeifar.