Mobile Sound
Sound, Mobile Media, Art & CultureArchive for sound 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.
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 »
Photos of the Product Sound Design Summer School
I’ve uploaded a bunch of pictures of the first two days of the Product Sound Design Summer School. More to follow soon.
and many more.
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 »
Call: Sonic interaction with Environmental sounds: Summer School by SMC+SID
This year’s SMC+SID Summer school is highly relevant for mobile sound projects, as it focuses on sonic interaction with Environmental sounds in the urban context. There is some funding available as well.
The 2009 Summer School in Sound and Music Computing & SID Training School on Interactions with Environmental Sounds will take place in Casa Da Música, Porto, Portugal, July 18th-21st, 2009, just before the 6th Sound and Music Computing Conference.
The theme of this summer school is Interacting with Sounds of Porto. This summer school will explore the potential of recording, processing, sharing and interacting with city sounds.
During 4 days, the program will include lectures, as well as hands-on practical sessions under the supervision of tutors who will provide one-to-one mentoring on artistic and/or scientific projects focused on interactions with sounds that reflect the city of Porto and its activities.
Speed talks and poster sessions will also be organized for students to present and receive feedback on their current research, and to foster scientific cross-fertilization.
Lectures and teachers:
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 »
Varèse on a GPS sound walk
I was just re-reading some texts in Audio Culture (Cox&Warner 2005),
amongst others “The Liberation of Sound” by Varèse. It struck me how much Varèse’s thoughts resonate with today’s GPS sound walk and audio mapping projects when he uses metaphors of cartography to describe spatialisations of sound. Of course, he was not Read the rest of this entry »
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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