Semester 01 Sonic Map Case Studies
Introduction
Cities and Memory is a sound art and field recording project with an extensive database of recordings. Artists from around the world recomposed their field recordings to give them new meaning.
There are over 1,000 artists involved in the Cities and Memory project, which collects sounds from around the world and remixes them to create more diverse sounds.
Cities and Memory contains two sound recordings for every location: a field recording of that location and a reimagined sound that presents that place and time in a different light. On the sound map, you have two navigation options. You may choose to navigate either through the actual sounds of the world or through an alternative reimagined world created by sound artists.
Due to the recent pandemic lockdown, people were able to record field recordings from different parts of the world to share their experiences. As a result of the social distancing rules, the sounds recorded during the lockdown period are silent. Every day felt like a loop of increasing frustration.
Imaginary Soundscape
This web-based application, developed by Qosmo, Inc, a Japanese company helps you create a suitable soundscape using the recent development of the cross-modal information retrieval technique, such as image-to-audio, text-to-image, using deep learning. Viewers may be able to freely travel through the generated soundscapes remotely by utilising Google Street View.
“The soundscapes generated by the AI sometimes
amaze us by meeting our expectations, but
occasionally ignore the cultural and
geographical context (the sound of waves on an
icy field of Greenland for instance). These
differences and mistakes lead us to contemplate
how the imagination works and how fertile the
sound environments surrounding us are. By
externalising our synaesthetic thinking, we
tried to shed lights on the power of imagination
we all share.”
— Qosmo, Inc
Img.22 - Google map platform 
Img.23 - Image upload feature
Sound of the Earth
An electronic musician, sound artist, and designer from Japan, Yuri Suzuki, has created a project called Sound of the Earth. As an artist, his practice explores the realms of sound through the design of pieces that examine how music and sound interact to create personal experiences by exploring the relationship between people and their environments. In Sound of the Earth, the artist utilises sphere-shaped artefacts that represent the planet to play field recordings from around the world.
The Sound of the Earth
The vinyl globe will play folk music and
national anthems recorded throughout the
world as a needle passes over it. When the
needle moves, the sphere plays sounds
created by grooves that have been cut into
the sphere, similar to traditional vinyl
records. Suzuki has been working on The
Sound of the Earth since 2009 and has now
unveiled a prototype, although the design
does not yet function perfectly—the music
skips as the globe turns, as shown in the
movie above.
Sound of the Earth Chapter 2-3
An interactive installation commissioned by the Dallas Museum of Art for the group exhibition Speechless. Sound of the Earth: Chapter 2 is a unique interactive installation that explores how sound can connect with and educate people in unexpected and extraordinary ways. By introducing distinct localities to audiences through the medium of sound, the installation challenges the way we experience foreign cultures. The primary sense engaged within the installation is hearing, but the project has been crafted to provide a multisensory experience in addition to listening. As the speakers within the artefact cause vibrations, those with hearing difficulties may enjoy the tactile dimensions of the work by touching the surface of the artefact.
Sound of the Earth Chapter 3
A black geodesic sphere with a diameter of four
metres has been created to represent a local and
global community that is connected through sound
as part of the 23rd Triennale Milano
International Exhibition. As part of
Google Arts and Culture's Artists +
Machine Intelligence Grants, this artwork uses
machine learning to connect distinct localities
and create a collective soundscape by combining
an interactive platform.
You can listen to the field recordings that were submitted for this project through the online platform here.
Img.24 - Sound of the Earth Chapter 2
Img.25 - Sound of the Earth Chapter 3
Sound of the Earth Pandemic Chapter
This project contains crowdsourced sounds of the pandemic from all over the world, as part of Virtual Design Festival. The online Pandemic Chapter lets people experience—and submit—everyday sounds from around the world during the coronavirus lockdown period.
As compared to the recordings in chapter 2, I hear more natural sounds in the pandemic chapter since there is less traffic. because there is less human traffic flow. Link to online platform.
The Global Synthesiser Project
Moog Music and Japanese sound artist Yuri Suzuki have created an interactive electronic instrument installation that maps the sounds of the earth, allowing users to synthesise the field recordings. The purpose of this project is to create a new sonic environment by synchronising the field recordings collected from around the world.
The Global Modular installation is a 3.2m x 1.67m installation consisting of 30 samplers, ten reverbs, five sequencers and four semi-modular synthesisers arranged by continents on a map. You can select the location of the home sound by using a selector button designed as a compass with cardinal points. Moog Music designed the software, hardware, rack system, and wooden cases for the modules.
"The idea was to present all the world's sound
identities. You can sample a bus engine from
London and combine it with a cave's acoustics
from somewhere else.
— Yuri Suzuki