Ximena Alarcón
2007.
Colombia,
United Kingdom (Great Britain).
vo British English.
The Interactive Sonic Environment is a multi-layered internet-based space of sounds in which users experience sensitive listening within a commuting journey in the London Underground. The environment contains contributions made by volunteers, in the form of meaningful sounds selected by them and reflective texts written by them. Five main spaces—entrance, tickets, corridor, platform and carriage— have been divided into categories according to the movement that the commuters make during the journey (e.g. going up escalators to the tickets' place). Four ‘symbolic' spaces—doors, trains arriving, announcements and steps—are the result of repetitions in their selections, which I considered relevant as a shared space in their memories - sub-spaces derived from the real space. Each category contains a list of sounds that are triggered and overlapped according to the user's navigation. The activity proposed by the artwork is one of “wandering”, or free navigation. Navigation allows, through the resultant layering and sequencing, the perception of a musical discourse of the commuting experience. It is a single-user multimedia application that embodies collective meaning. The whole of the virtual space and the feelings triggered by it become the focus of the experience.
http://soundingunderground.org/