Hearing the Moon: Sound as Storytelling in Ordinary Night

Ordinary Night explores how far sound can carry a story when visuals are kept intentionally minimal. A single circular image invites open interpretation, while a layered nocturnal soundscape guides viewers toward imagining a moonlit scene. The illusion is disrupted when ingredients strike a pot, reframing the scene as domestic. This paper documents design choices, timing, and audience responses, outlining a practical framework for sound-led storytelling under visual constraints: a minimal image, a coherent ambience punctuated by cues, and one decisive sonic event that reshapes meaning. Building on Michel Chion’s notion of the audio-visual contract (1994), Brandon LaBelle’s concept of acoustic territories (2010), Denis Emmerson’s categorization of mimetic and abstracted sound (1986), and Michael Southworth’s insights into the sonic environment of cities (1969), the study situates its approach within established discourse while foregrounding practice-based experimentation.