Two new sites on the geo-locative radar today worth mentioning: audioar and Walk Listen Create. Both zero in on locative audio as a field of study, showcasing a raft of new projects emerging, and act as something of a hub for those of us working in this field.
Audioar is connected with MIT in the US, so it comes with its own enviable (some might say questionable) stamp for digital innovation. Among the notables on its team are Halsey Burgund, the developer and artist behind the locative app, Roundware, which offers a very simple and yet powerfully layered approach to building and experiencing place-based sound experience that draws from world around us: and veteran radio producer, Fancesca Panetta, whose ground-breaking work Hackney Hear once played on iphone 3s on the London streets in years gone by. Panetta is currently creative director at the Centre for Advance Virtuality at MIT. Having worked in VR some some years on projects like the Moon Landing, she is now returning to audio.
While locative audio (my preferred term) might be called hybrid storytelling, situated audio, or audio walks, the audioar term is a new one for me. Doubtless its ‘AR’ part is derived through its kinship with VR, which is associated with the computer-generated world. Only now with AR, as Ulricchio points out, “we append a simulated layer onto the real world, and interact with both [1].” While AR today promises a new immersive locational audio experience, whether through ambiosonic headphones, Bose’s new line up of smartwear and glasses, or their Creator and Developer Tools, I’m not sure reality has kept pace with the hype — yet! This is borne out by Chris Pike’s recent PhD on binaural audio, which suggests that for simplicity and effect, nothing can beat a good stereo mic. One thing that does seem clear is that the 360% locational sound experience promises money, investment and innovation. Whether this is in service of gaming or VR or in a bid to foster a richer place-based experience, I don’t know but I suspect the former. At a time when bigger players like Detour or App Furnace have gone by the wayside, as have a generation of early-model locative projects like Missorts by Tony White or Fixing Poin t by Blast Furnace, the questions remains: what’s next for locative audio and is omni-directional audio the next big thing.
For me, the potency of locative audio is in its capacity to deliver to listeners sounds, be it voices, songs or archival footage, in some sort of creative accordance with either the people who rightfully belong there or the place itself. On the Goonoowigall Soundtrail, for example, a former Aboriginal fringe camp from the 1940s to the 70s, I doubt ambiosonic sounds or haptics will matter much, either to locals or visitors, when compared to the sheer act of bringing to life these voices and stories on site. This is partly a regional/city issue that sees metropolitan areas often spoilt for choice. It is also my belief that such sound experiences, when worked up alongside community and assiduously produced, bring their own power, histories and potency, irrespective of technology. In this case the technology simply has to get out of the road. I hope Audioar does not lose sight of these foundations to the locative audio experience when there is still so much to learn.
The second online portal is Walk Listen Create (WLC). Among its team are Andrew Stuck from Sound Walk September, along with “creator, poet and interdisciplinary artist”, Geert Vermeire, and digital artist and developer, Babak Fakhamzadeh, alongside a team of other creative volunteers. WLC is the new face to SWS which is celebrating “sound walking events and performances…outdoor audio, geo-located, immersive performances, listening walks and sound walks.” While WLC tracks a similar path to audioar, to my mind it has a slower, albeit more European, heartbeat. Celebrated here is the journey, as much as the destination let alone the underpinning technology. The eclectic mix of soundwalks that are each year showcased in the Sound Walks September reflect this: from CGeomap to the latest from the UK Echoes platform, to the tranquility sites of Hush City Mobile Lab, to the gritty world of sexual assault and Consent. Sound Walks September is a first in seeking to bring people around the world together. It gives a democratic lilt to walking mobile audio experience. In spite of the techno-mystique of the locative audio experience, it could run with the byline ‘anyone can do this.’ Whether this means it risks its legitimacy as a player with the high-end of town, remains to be seen.
While audioar and Walk Listen Create bring slightly different approaches to locative audio, they both inject a much-needed scholarship, expertise and passion into the mix. Having worked in this field for six years, I don’t need convincing how remarkable locative audio is, or what an exciting future it has in store. But it also has a long way to go to be taken seriously, until there are sustainable financial models for producers, or ones which take into consideration the longevity of the audio work itself-given the time and money behind so many apps, is their expendability still justifiable? I look forward to what both these portals can bring: be it generating broader discussion or supporting nascent locative audio producers who are trying to get a handle on what it’s all about. Perhaps in time we will see one of these sites turn into a version of what Transom does for radio and podcast producers: a sort of one-stop-shop for locative audio aficionados and producers. I suspect so.
[1] Uricchio, W 2019 Augmenting Reality: The Markers Memories, and Meanings Behind Today’s AR. Urban Interfaces, Media, Art and Performance in Public Spaces, edited by Verhoeff, Nanna, Sigrid Merx, and Michiel de Lange. Leonardo Electonic Almanan 22, no 4, p7
Originally published at https://storiedland.com on February 17, 2020.
Reposted to Medium with permission from the author.
