Airpod Symphony

An audio visual portrait of students at Bucknell University, November 2025

Across campus a silent cacophony rages. While students may look the same today as they ever did, trudging up the hill to class, each is in sync with a different beat lost in their personal worlds of auditory isolation. It is only the tolling bells of the church steeple that links people of Bucknell now, like a bass line that embeds itself into the background of every soundtrack. 

This audio and video portrait of 50 members of the Bucknell community was made at a time when we are less connected than ever by the very technology that promised to bring us closer together. Physically close yes, but emotionally distant, deaf to the wind, blind to the people around us as we descend deeper into our phones feeding the ravenous appetite of the data miners. 

Is it time to ask again for whom the bell tolls?

Stafford Smith and Ritsu Katsumata
January 2026