Overview:
- Digital art installation featuring thousands of field recordings from around the world.
- Setup resembles a giant map on the gallery floor, consisting of wires, cables, up to 300 speakers, and two custom-made amplifiers.
- Configurable to focus on specific cities (e.g., London, Paris, Rome) or the entire world.
- Interactive and generative sound art system allowing audience control and manipulation of sounds and maps.
Components:
- Grid layout on the gallery floor includes wires, cables, up to 300 speakers, and two custom amplifiers.
- Custom software enables the projection of maps onto the wall corresponding to the selected city.
- Audience interaction facilitated through two computers connected to projectors, transforming them into performers.
- Computers display interactive sound maps, allowing the audience to choose and control the sounds played on the speakers.
Functionality:
- Interactive and generative: Audience operates the system, becoming both performers and conductors.
- Operates autonomously when unattended, functioning as a generative system exploring global sounds.
- Utilizes soundcities.com database and live feeds with new software, incorporating real-time elements into the experience.
City Sounds and Identity:
- Exhibition explores city sounds as a poetic interpretation from a listening perspective.
- Soundscape reflects emotional and responsive interactions with cities, providing clues to city identities.
- Specific sounds evoke the character of places and stimulate senses in a musical manner.
- Emphasis on the online aural experience, transforming found sounds into both literal descriptions and developed musical compositions.
Philosophy:
- Conceptualizes the city as its own evolving music, composed of various sounds such as squeaks, clanks, and pulses.
- Challenges the impact of globalization on the identity of city experiences, highlighting the homogeneity found worldwide.
- Soundcities involves field recording as an appreciation of sound, considering it not just as noise or pollution but as an integral part of the space.
User Interaction:
- Users navigate the interactive interface of the city as they walk through streets.
- Responsive interactions shape the city space, turning the audience into conductors composing the city’s music through their movements.
- The city is presented as both noise and music, where the audience’s actions contribute to the evolving composition of the urban orchestra.