Mobile Sound
Sound, Mobile Media, Art & CultureArchive for audio walk
The sound of locative media: out now
My journal article The sound of locative media has now been published by Convergence. I look forward to hearing your thoughts about this article! The full reference is: Frauke Behrendt (2012) The sound of locative media, Convergence 18 (3): 283-295.
Screenshot from the video of The National Mall app
One of the case studies I discuss in the article is ‘The National Mall’, an iPhone app (released in 2011 by musicians Bluebrain) where users listen to specific music depending on their location.
Here’s the abstract:
This article develops an alternative perspective to the visual bias in locative media discourses by focusing on the role of sound in locative media and related discussions. This sonic perspective allows us to understand the temporal, situated and embodied aspects of locative media. Informed by debates from sound studies and mobile media studies, a locative smart phone application where users experience specific sounds depending on their locations, is discussed. The concept of ‘Placed Sounds’ is introduced for a more detailed analysis of locative sound experiences. A framework for analysis is developed to discuss how locative sound engages with the auditory aspects of our spatial perception, how immersion operates for locative media and sound, and also to consider the role of situated experience, the role of walking as remixing, and how agency and exclusion operate in locative sound. This framework explains how walking operates in terms of interacting with locative media, and how we experience being immersed in physical and media contexts at once via sound.
You can get the full article here.
Photos of Sounds Like Mobility: A Mobile Media, Sound and Music Event
Photos from Sounds Like Mobility: A Mobile Media, Sound and Music Event that took place at The Cultures of the Digital Economy (CoDE) Research Institute, Anglia Ruskin University (Cambridge) on 17th May 2011, organised by Frauke Behrendt, are now online (photos by Ann Evelin Lawford) and some by myself are here and there are more by Julio D’Escrivan. Please let us know if you also have pictures form the event to share!
A big thank you to all speakers, performers and chairs – Georgina Born, Atau Tanaka, John Williamson, Steve Symons, Julio D’Escrivan, Rachel O’ Dwyer, Lalya Gaye, Enrique Tomas, Adam Parkinson, Richard Hoadley, Ashley Elsdon, Nick Bryan-Kinns – for making this a great event!
Listening Exercises and Soundwalks at the Product Sound Design Summer School at Aalto Design Factory, Helsinki
A few weeks ago I was teaching at the Product Sound Design Summer School at Aalto Design Factory in Helsinki. It was great fun and here are some pictures from the event.
The module I was teaching focused on Listening Exercises and Soundwalks and was part of stage 1 ‘Sensitising’ of the summer school.
To be able to work with small groups of students I trained Stephen Barras, Inger Ekman and Sylviane Sapir. Stephen also wrote about this on his blog. It was very interesting to share how we use soundwalks in our teaching. Here are Read the rest of this entry »
13-16 Sept: 4-day workshop exploring architecture and the city through listening and recorded sound (London)
If anyone happens to be free in a few weeks time, check out this summer workshop Field Studies 2010 (and enjoy the sound recordings on the website):
A four-day summer workshop exploring architecture and the city through
listening and recorded sound, led by Marc Behrens, Justin Bennett and John
Levack Drever.
London, 13-16 September 2010 Department of Architecture and Spatial
Design, London Metropolitan University
Introduction
Field Studies 2010 is a four-day field-recording workshop led by three
acclaimed sound artists and composers. It aims to explore recording as a
creative and practical tool for artists, architects and urbanists, and the
possibilities of working with sound as a means to engage with places and
people.
Fees and registration
The cost of Read the rest of this entry »
Apply now for Product Sound Design Summer School, August 23-26 2010
The Sonic Interaction Design group I have been involved with over the last few years is running a Summer School on Product Sound Design, in collaboration with Aalto University, ‘Design Factory‘ and industry partners in Helsinki. This will be highly valuable for PhD students in their first years or Master students in their final year. Places are limited so apply as soon as possible!
More information from the website:
Future products will rely on our natural capabilities of continuous and physical interaction. Moreover, for the best experience in their use, they need to stimulate, but not saturate, all our senses. Our sense of hearing is quite advanced; yet only a few product developers, engineers, marketing teams, and designers know how to make use of it properly. The COST-SID action, over the years, has developed a growing body of methods, tools, and techniques to get you started.
Our mission in this summer school is to educate the future product design and development team members with a specific competence on interactive sound. The training school is strategically positioned as a first step in a longer research and training on the integration of SID product sound design methods with Product Design and Development, as thought at the Aalto University and MIT, for Read the rest of this entry »
Urban Sync
Stephan Baumann just finished his project Urban Sync. Check it out the great project blog. Stephan has been working on interesting mobile projects for a while and our paths have crossed several times.
He has been working on bluetuna with Arianna Bassolli and presented the project at the Mobile Music Workshop in 2006.
Stephan also participated in the Sonic Interaction Design workshop I organised with Lalya Gaye and Karmen Franinovic at ICAD at Ircam earlier this year.
Urban Sync by Stephan Bauman was one of those Sonic Interaction Design (SID) Short Term Scientific Missions (STSMs) I keep advertising on this blog. Great to see more mobile work in the SID community! Hope this inspires more of you to apply!
This is from his blog:
Urban Sync aims at finding the correlates which define personal well-being in an urban context. Since we live our lifes meanwhile in a world augmented by technical artefacts, the boundaries seem to blur between being always-on or completely-off. Knowledge workers, artists, Web2.0 aficionados define the quality of life and especially urban life by something in-between work and activities in private life, something in-between the office, the city, the countryside – the „third place“ – is Read the rest of this entry »
Odd Sympathies
- “Odd Sympathies” is a mobile sound project by “Sans façon”, a collaborative art practice between a French architect, Charles Blanc, and a British artist, Tristan Surtees.
This is a re-blog from their blog, an extract of their press release:
We finished the last performances of Odd Sympathies last week-end.
An extract from the press release:
“Imagine attending a concert but instead of sitting or standing, you walk. Imagine the music you listen to captured from sounds that already exist around you as you walk through the concert. Imagine the concert is slightly different each time you experience it because there may be unexpected sounds along the way. Sans façon and composer John Metcalf have collaborated to create Odd Sympathies, three new sonic pieces that capture the sounds of the city of Cardiff and together form what we believe is the first sonic map of the city.
Drawing inspiration from the iconic work 4’33’’ Silence by John Cage, Odd Sympathies is a series of carefully composed sound maps of Cardiff that take in some of the fascinating landmarks in the city and open the ears to a sound world that is in many ways as dense and magical as a rainforest.”
and a short interview on Radio Wales Arts Show with Nicola Heywood Thomas available until june 12:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/noscript.shtml?/radio/aod/wales_aod.shtml?wales/artsshow
“Designing an Auditory Experience Using a Location-based Computer Game” by Kristiansen
Erik Kristiansen presented “Designing an Auditory Experience Using a Location-based Computer Game” at the “Sound, Art, Auditory Cultures” conference in Copenhagen (28.-30.11.07). These are personal notes I took of his paper – not a summary or review.
Didn’t manage to get Kristiansen’s card, but at least a picture of one – at the wine reception of the conference.
Erik Kristiansen’s interest is to go beyond audio as part of the game or supporting the game to audio-mostly games – and how they intersect with pervasive gaming or location-based games. Erik Kristiansen is designing a new audio-mostly pervasive game. It is “serious” game where the participants are supposed to learn something. It is called Klintespillet (I’m not 100% sure about the spelling here…it translates as “Cliff Game”). The exiting thing is that it works without maps or screens. The participants are depended on listening to find the 29 hotspots in the outdoor area. The outdoor players are guided by online players that have access to maps and the outdoor player’s location.
Picture of the cliffs on Mons by dacoba on flickr.
Kristiansen explains the game in his abstract:
‘In cooperation with a new geological museum (“Geocenter Møns Klint”) and the Danish Forest and Nature Agency (“Skov og Naturstyrelsen”), we wanted to Read the rest of this entry »
Video “Interactive Exploration of City Maps with Auditory Torches”
I wrote about the “Auditory Torches ” Project a while ago (http://mobilesound.wordpress.com/2007/08/02/auditory-torches/)
Now I found a video explaining the project:
The project was also featured on the Discovery Channel Website
Magic Moments, Butterflies and a GPS Sound Walk
Yesterday, I went out to Spectacle Island in Boston harbour to experience Teri Rueb’s “Core Sample”, an interactive GPS sound walk.
I spent so much longer than planned exploring the island and the sounds, a good indication of how much I loved the piece. I’m taking away a sunburned face as well as some magic moments and daydreams.
Soundwalks always seem to bring Read the rest of this entry »
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