Cities & Memory

We’ve seen quite a few projects using geolocation lately, from Sterepublic which “crowdsourced the quiet”, to the URB project in Porto, also collecting sound data from locations. The Cities & Memory project is different in the sense that it wants to record the sounds of the actual space, as well as the poetic, underlying space.

Every faithful field recording document here is accompanied by a reworking, a processing or an interpretation that imagines that place and time as somewhere else, somewhere new. The listener can choose to explore locations through their actual sounds, or explore interpretations of what those places could be – or to flip between the two different sound worlds at leisure.

I think the idea of having both the real field recording and the poetic interpretation side by side is very interesting. Of course this is an interpretation, so bound to be quite subjective. I’m especially curious if we, in time, could figure out a certain sound-vocabulary to describe the poetics of a place. If any, Cities and Memory is a good start!

Stereopublic: Crowdsourcing the quiet

In urban areas, silent places where one can enjoy some quietude are getting more and more scarce. There’s a lot of what some might call “noise pollution”, sound harmful to human health and disturbing a balanced life. With cities still getting more crowded and thus louder every year, no wonder that this is quite a hot topic, also with artists. We saw Music for Forgotten Places by composer Oliver Blank last year for example, a project where one can dial a phone number on a sign to hear some music for a silent place in the city, and take a mindful moment in a busy city.

The Stereopublic project is similar in that it is also about taking a moment and listening, but different in the sense that it is built around an app and website, which document the quiet places and pieces composed for these. Not only the artist, but everyone can participate.

Sound artist Jason Sweeney started the Stereopublic project to help create a unique record of different places and make people more aware about their sound environment.

“Stereopublic: crowdsourcing the quiet” is a participatory art project that asks you to navigate your city for quiet spaces, share them with your social networks, take audio and visual snapshots, experience audio tours and request original compositions made using your recordings.

Originally started in Sweeney’s hometown Adelaide, the Stereopublic project is now catching on in other cities, mapping the silent areas around you. When I tried it last year, most cities weren’t open to map, but it seems Sweeney’s now opened the platform to anyone who wants to add a silent space, no matter where you are. Adding a space also means recording 30 seconds of ambience, which means slowing down and actively listening to your surroundings. Last year, 600 quiet spots were added in cities all over the world. In the future, we might just have big cities with dedicated quiet zones.

Very Quiet Records

Tony Whitehead is a sound recordist and owner of the label Very Quiet Records and sub-label Very Quiet Records Static. He releases recordings of quiet places and situations from sound artists and field recordists from all over the world.

I met Tony back in january 2010 when I was an intern at Sound and Music in England. He organised a 12-hour soundwalk through the town of Plymouth, which was an unforgettable experience. Walking the fringes of the town, we found some beautiful spots near the sea. The longer we walked, the more we got into a trance where we were purely focused on the sounds, sights and smells of our cold winter surroundings.

The records he releases on Very Quiet Records range from quite static, noisy wind recordings to more dynamic recordings of objects or nature. Most of these recordings exist of one-takes of around ~40 minutes to an hour. When listening on headphones, they quickly become your artificial surrounding. When the recording ends, the silence is almost unbearable, as you’ve become accustomed to the crickets or sounds of the shore.

SeoulSoundMap

It has been quite a while since we took a look at a soundmap like SoundTransit or Radio Aporee, while more and more of these maps are created around the world. This time I would like to share the SeoulSoundMap project with you. 

The campaign is created by the Korean sound art and culture webzine Sound@Media in order to raise awareness of the sonic environment of the city. I it allows us to travel trough the streets of Seoul, in sound, and experience of moment of this huge metropolis. Please try it for yourself.

The SeoulSoundMap is the first urban soundscape project with public participation in Korea. Anyone with a mobile recording device can participate and upload recordings via Audioboo.fm. Visit the Sound@Media website (in Korean, you might want to use Google translate on it) to find out more about their projects.