A Collective Future, Made of Whispers

The future arrives as a whisper: “I see a world where everyone eats.”

I turn instinctively toward the sound, but the room is pitch black. Inside the circular chamber of this theater, obscured somewhere in the darkness, another whisper brushes past me from the opposite direction: “I see a world where we respond to harm with care.” Then another, and another. Within seconds, I’m surrounded by dozens of voices imagining the world they wish existed – all of them sending chills down my spine.

This is 1000 Whispers From Our Future, a project from Oakland artist Pat Mesiti-Miller which more than earns its name. The program, based on the prison system, runs Dec. 4–Jan. 3 at the immersive San Francisco venue Audium.

“What’s important to know is that this is not a project that’s strictly about the carceral system,” Mesiti-Miller says during a recent visit to Audium. “It’s more explicitly about an oppressive system at large, and a carceral system is an example of that.”

The piece is rooted in Mesiti-Miller’s decade-plus of work inside San Quentin and other California prisons, ranging from serving as producer and sound designer for the Peabody and Pulitzer Prize nominated podcast Ear Hustle to helping with the San Quentin Film Festival.

In other words, he’s spent years capturing the confining sounds of the prison system and how its structure functions to take one’s freedom away. Pulling from his archive of recordings for 1000 Whispers — a 45 minute-long piece presented in complete darkness through the 176 speakers of Audium’s surround-sound theater — Mesiti-Miller reconstructs a physical and emotional landscape that’s both immersive and unsettling.

“Part of focusing on the physical sounds is wanting people to look critically at this apparatus that exists,” he explains. “If it starts there, and we can see it localized on a prison site, [we ask] ‘Where does it start and where does it end? Does it end?’ That’s the question I want people to walk away with.”

To bring 1000 Whispers to life, Mesiti-Miller invited participants to imagine the world they want to live in, recording their responses as whispers. These whispered visions are central to the project; unlike a steady, commanding voice, a whisper demands close attention.

Captured from hundreds of participants across community gatherings in the Bay Area, the recordings reveal a striking honesty and generosity of spirit. Each whisper reflects a deeply felt yearning for a world more humane, compassionate and interconnected.

“One of the things that I’ve found from the recordings was just how incredibly honest, incredibly heartfelt and genuine everyone was,” Mesiti-Miller said. While listening back to them, “I was overwhelmed — it was such a beautiful snapshot, a glimpse into people’s hearts.”

In this way, the whispers serve as a counterpoint to the loud, oppressive sounds of confinement. Layering the words of participants with original music, Mesiti-Miller creates a soundscape that moves between the harsh realities of oppression and the possibility of a more caring, connected world.

“We need to imagine new systems, and we have the capacity to do that,” he says. “Oftentimes our mind is stuck on what’s here, what’s now, and how do we stop it or how do we break it down? That’s all important and necessary. But it’s also necessary to imagine new things, and to share those visions with each other — and to build towards those together.”

‘1000 Whispers From Our Future’ runs Thursdays–Saturdays through Jan. 3 at Audium (1616 Bush St., San Francisco). Tickets and more information here.