Soundmaps and archives
Photography captures and represents images of a landscape, documents its values and enables us to interpret it; likewise, recording captures moments of the continuous, inexhaustible flow of a soundscape.
The websites in this dossier are ongoing collections of sound fragments associated with the place where they were recorded, usually with a high degree of interaction between the platform and its users. The soundmaps and sound archives disclose the characteristic sonority of a space, but also seek out hybrid sounds, unexpected relationships, and echoes between different places.
Catalonia
Memories, stories, emotions and everyday experiences from Badia del Vallès (Barcelona) are evoked through the voices of its inhabitants and recorded over a map of the town. A collective project initiated by Pau Faus with the support of Radio Badia.
A map that compiles sounds of the village of Pontós (Alt Penedès) and georeferences them on a map in Google Maps. The sound files were recorded by the children of the village and are accompanied by photographs of the areas in which they were recorded.
Catalonia
Collective research set up by Sitesize projects platform in 2002 to investigate the territorial identity of the spaces surrounding the River Ripoll as it flows through Sabadell, a town near Barcelona. Sound is examined by identifying and recording the changing noises making up the soundscape of this stretch of the river.
Sound database of Barcelona city, where everybody can listen, download and contribute new field recordings. Initiatives, projects and workshops related to the subject are also posted here. Website created by the Music Technology Research Group of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.
Europe
Belgium
The sound cartography of Brussels hopes to bring the town's polyphonic identity to light. Its soundscapes are undergoing constant evolution. The sounds that can be heard were recorded as part of thematic collections, spontaneously, by collectives and individuals, by professionals and amateurs.
France
Evolution of the Paris sound map, created by a sound technician, the Paris Sound Landscape Archive is a collection of almost 3,000 contemporary sounds from the city, including the sounds of each of the 20 districts, as well as the sounds from some of the surrounding suburban areas.
Germany
Berlin Wall Sound Map, organised by a radio station, with field recordings taken all along the wall.
The symphony of a great city. Downloadable recordings suggest an original way of hearing and understanding the sounds, the harmonies and the dissonances of Berlin, through the everyday experience of public space.
Ireland
The Belfast Sound Map is an open resource that aims to involve local communities in recording everyday sounds and therefore, to characterise the soundscape of the city. It also encourages users/listeners to explore the map in different ways, including a game that creates a sequence composed of different recordings.
Italy
On Saturday, 20 April 2013, Adiacenze hosted the Bologna Soundscape Project, a sound workshop organised by Alessio Ballerini and Francesco Giannico.
A thematic workshop that constructed an event based on the sounds of the old city of Taranto. For a week, a work group recorded a large number of audio samples in the old city using the “listening points” selected to obtain a sound map that is available online as well as a video art clip
Portugal
The sounds recorded in five Portuguese cities can be heard singly or in mixes of up to five layers. The result is strange, fascinating compositions throwing up unexpected relationships between different places. Cinco Cidades was created by The Folk Songs Project team.
Sweden
Oljud Sthlm is a collaboration between the musical producer Hakan Lidbo and the ethnologist Elin Franzen through exhibitions, interactive web projects and workshops paying attention to the environmental sounds of the city of Stockholm.
United Kingdom
Guide to the everyday sounds of London, with field recordings bearing witness to the lives of its human and animal inhabitants. The site has an efficient icon map showing the main types of sound heard in each part of the city, and a section with descriptions and historical references on how London must have sounded in the past.
International
A web platform dedicated to sharing, exploring and investigating the soundscape. The project is open and collaborative, any interested person may publish their field recordings and contribute to this cartography that mainly focuses on South America.
This sound map aims to create a huge collaborative database of fragments of audio, samples, recordings, etc. released under Creative Commons licences to allow them to be reused.
Interactive world map made by French research group Locus Sonus, offering real-time listening in to soundstreams recorded by microphones located all over the planet.
Macaulay Library aims to document the diversity and behaviour of birds around the world. The huge digital archive, compiled by Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology (Ithaca, NY), contains thousands of recordings of the sounds of birds and other species.
Internet radio programme exploring contemporary public soundscapes, alternating with recordings submitted to the parallel soundmap project, radio aporee ::: maps.
Open archive converted into a sound map of Seoul for the public. The objective of the campaign is to focus on recovering the sense of listening to sounds that make up the landscape of everyday lives.
This tourist guide examines what is not usually found in other tourist guides. The sounds of many places that we have visited are part of the experience and, in some cases, what we hear is more important than what we see.
Archive of geo-referenced recordings that question the identity of city soundscapes from all over the world, their power to evoke memories and experiences, and their ability to differentiate and hybridise in a never-ending flow. Project by British artist Stanza.
Project based on an ongoing participative archive of field recordings which enables users to plan and experience astounding sound journeys through various localities around the world, selecting their departure point, stop-overs and final destination.
Collection of birdsong recordings from around the world, featuring a search engine organised by species, or by musical criteria such as tone, tempo and number of notes.
Stories and experiences from different cities around the world are told by the voices of their inhabitants, which are recorded and collected on this website. Special telephone numbers can be dialled from the exact spot where the story took place.
Argentina
Website exploring the inexhaustible network of relationships between sound and silence, and attempting to define the codes by which the city's inhabitants give meaning to the sound society. Acoustic registers from Rosario (Argentina) are classified by subject, date and place of recording.
Bolivia
This website belongs to a project attempting to record Bolivia''s acoustic memory since 2005. The main elements are the sound maps of cities such as La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz.
Canada
Ongoing map for exploring Montreal's sound dimension through the murmurings of the city's collective voice.
Chile
Recorrido Sonoro is a platform to inform about the Province of Curicó and its tourist attractions from the point of view of sound, in a virtual way.
China
Evocative collection of Chinese soundscapes recorded by English sound technician Peter Eason, linked to related photographs by cinema director Jonathan Lewis.
Mexico
Bird songs and calls from a country with one of the richest birdlife in the world. The library is designed for ornithologists and bird-lovers, but is also interesting for non-experts.
United States
Sound installation to document the sound geography of the Columbia River.
The New York Society for Acoustic Ecology project assembles initiatives and experiments for this map of the sound features of New York, as a historical record and a subjective representation of the city.
Sound Seeker is a map that gives greater importance to hearing than seeing. The project arrives by means of the geographical, economic, educational, cultural and racial divisions of the city. It is a historic record, at the same time as being a subjective representation of the city.
Spain
Andalusia
A map that enables us to explore small nooks and crannies of this Andalusian city.
The soundscape of a place is constructed from field recordings and detailed registers of its acoustic behaviour. In this case, there is the sound map of the Andalusian city of Malaga, compiled by El Sueño de Tesla Cultural Association.
Asturias
Mapa Sonoru is a project created by Juanjo Palacios which aims to discover, preserve and disseminate the sound heritage of Asturias.
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands Sound Library was created in 2010 and its main work is focused on creating a sound archive in which all the characteristics sounds —many of which are unique— that make up the sound identity of the archipelago are found.
Cantabria
Sound file of the Saja Reserve Community, highlighting sounds of nature, trades, festivals, culture, sport, etc.
Galicia
A geo-referenced archive by Escoitar.org group proposing an immersion into the contrasting landscapes of Galicia, with many different voices expressing the intangible, ephemeral values of the region.
Abraham Felpato’s thesis for the end of his Master’s degree called “Estudio sobre la realidad sonora de Lugo / Study on the sound reality of Lugo” was created with the aim of disseminating the sound heritage of the city of Lugo.
Madrid
An approach to the soundscape idiosyncrasies of Madrid and its surrounding area, coming out of a collaborative public workshop led by Escoitar.org group in 2008.
The Basque Country
The changing vibrations of different places are pinpointed on a map with a cluster of markers, inviting us on unusual journeys of discovery through the sensorial landscapes of the Basque Country.