The project was created late last month by Matthew Chavez, an artist; Thomas Reintjes, an audio producer; and Dean Haddock, a creative technologist and Knight Nieman Visiting Fellow.

“It’s interesting for people to describe whatever fishbowl they’re trapped in,” Mr. Chavez said in a Zoom interview from his apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. “What a wonderful, weird time it was to notice things.”

To participate, people can call a telephone number (951-963-3643) and they can either record a short message for other people to hear, or listen to what others have said. Callers are asked to leave “a reflection, thought or story.” Callers are asked to keep themselves, as well as those they mention in their recordings, anonymous.

Its creators want the project to do more than distract and entertain. They hope to partner with an organization to preserve the recordings, as a time capsule, they said.

Mr. Haddock — who was stuck in California after an ill-timed trip from his home in Green Point — said if the material collected by the project “is used to justify improvements in our health care or our way of life that ultimately remind us that we don’t want to go through this again, than it will have served some purpose.”

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