Sound and the city: rethinking spatial epistemologies with urban sound maps

ABSTRACT

Urban sound maps are audio-visual representations of cities created by associating sounds and urban landmarks on a digital geographic map. Fusing cartography and audio recording, urban sound maps prompt a rethinking of how notions of places and spaces are being shaped, not just by maps but also by diverse sound technologies. Drawing from geography, sound, and media studies scholarship, this article explores how urban sound maps inform current discussions about digital place-making practices, as well as ongoing conversations about how maps offer “a way of thinking about the world.” Examining various sound mapping projects, it consists of a two-part analysis, integrating a phenomenology of user interface and “deep listening.” The first part pinpoints the assorted place-making practices associated with urban sound mapping involving initiators, recordists, map users, and media and their multi-layered politics. The second part delineates the techno-sensory interplay set in motion by the digital interface of the sound map and articulates its new listening-based cartography. The concluding section outlines the ways in which urban sound maps reiterate but also exceed previous models of spatiality prescribed by visual maps and other sound technologies, producing an unsettled model of subjectivity and rearranging established conceptual relationships between places, spaces, and users.

KEYWORDS:

• Sound mapping
• cartography
• digital place-making
• urban studies
• sound interface

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Amit Pinchevski for his guidance and advice. I thank Ella Klik, Ido Ramati, Noa Shakargy, Maya de Vries, and the reviewers for their valuable and constructive comments on different versions of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. As evident in Siegert’s (2011, 14) analysis of the tactile qualities of the map in Vermeer’s “Allegory of Painting”, mapping is always already multi-sensory. Tactile maps and other geographic aids for the blind have been around for several centuries (Giaimo 2017) and are nowadays facing adjustments with the introduction of digital maps (Lobben 2015).

2. During recent, extended lockdowns due to Coronavirus, these urban sounds, emblematic of vibrant city lives, were greatly missed by city people. In a Washington Post essay, Schulman (2020) wrote: “I can’t remember the last time I heard a horn honking or a car alarm going off. How annoying they were. How I miss them”.

3. Five of the sound mapping projects in the research corpus specifically use the term to describe their purpose or content. For instance, the Montreal sound map is described as “a web-based soundscape project that allows users to upload field recordings to a Google Map of Montreal. The soundscape is constantly changing, and this project acts as a sonic time capsule with the goal of preserving sounds before they disappear”. Similarly, the creators of the Baha Blanca sound map point out that “the soundscape has been declared by UNESCO as an Intangible Heritage of Humanity. Therefore, its safeguarding, revitalisation, regeneration, and dissemination will be an important contribution to the regional and local culture”.

4. The sound mapping projects in the corpus vary in their reliance on crowdsourcing: a) Montreal, Seoul, Basque country, and radio aporee sound maps allow their users to upload their sound recordings directly to the online platform with more or less elaborated guidelines; b) Baha Blanca and Budapest sound maps invite users to email relevant acoustic materials to the maps’ managers; and c) London “favourite sounds”, Belgrade, Wroclaw, and “soundcities – heard above the noise” projects do not offer any formal option for contributions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hadar Levy-Landesberg

Hadar Levy-Landesberg is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her dissertation examines the unique roles played by sound interfaces in interactions with and through media, and the ways in which a conceptual paradigm of sound and listening challenges common assumptions in media studies. Her research interests are sound studies, human-technology interaction, media philosophy and theory, and communication, media and the senses.