3URFHHGLQJV RI WKH WK 6RXQG DQG 0XVLF &RPSXWLQJ &RQIHUHQFH &RSHQKDJHQ 'HQPDUN  -XO\  THE QUIET WALK: SONIC MEMORIES AND MOBILE CARTOGRAPHY Alessandro Altavilla Atau Tanaka Culture Lab Newcastle University Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 7RU United Kingdom a.altavilla@gmail.com Goldsmiths Digital Studios University of London New Cross, London SE14 6NW United Kingdom a.tanaka@gold.ac.uk ABSTRACT This paper presents The Quiet Walk, an interactive mo- bile artwork for sonic explorations of urban space. The goal of TQW is to find the “quietest place”. An interface on the mobile device directs the user to avoid noisy areas of the city, giving directions to find quiet zones. Data collected by the system generates a geo-acoustic map of the city that facilitates the personal recollection of sonic memories. The system is comprised of 3 components: a smartphone running a custom application based on libpd and openFrameworks, a web server collecting the GPS and acoustical data, and computer in an exhibition space displaying a visualisation of the sound map. This open- ended platform opens up possibilities of mobile digital signal processing, not only for sound art related artworks but also as a platform for data-soundscape compositions and mobile, digital explorations in acoustic ecology stud- ies. 1. INTRODUCTION In the Handbook for Acoustic Ecology, Barry Truax de- fines acoustic ecology as “the study of the effects of the acoustic environment, or soundscape, on the physical responses or behavioural characteristics of those living within it”[1]. One of the key concepts in this field is the “soundscape”, the sonic image of a particular environ- ment (natural, artificial, or mixed). Soundscape is a term that has been defined several times in the history of sound and social science. According to Paul Rodaway, it is, the sonic environment which surrounds the sentient. The hearer, or listener, is at the centre of the soundscape. It is a context, it surrounds and it generally consists of many sounds coming from different directions and of differing characteristics… Soundscapes surround and unfold in complex symphonies or cacophonies of sound. [2] For R. Murray Schafer, a soundscape is made up of three main elements, which are the keynote sounds, sound sig- nals and soundmarks [3]. This terminology aids us in establishing a lexicon to describe a sonic image related not only to a place but also to every aspect of sound in everyday life. According to Schafer, keynote sounds are those that are part of an acoustic image and are always or very often present in a scene. They can be consciously or unconsciously heard but their presence defines the gen- eral tonality of the sonic image. Sound signals are sonic events that disrupt the normal soundscape and which take on immediate meaning, for example alarms or people screaming. In general they are sounds that solicit the at- tention of the listener. Finally soundmarks are sounds that belong exclusively to a specific place. This vocabulary reveals an attempt to define an auditory world independent of musical traditions, and is the basis of activities like making sound maps or creating sound- scape compositions. Augoyard and Torgue criticise Schafer’s concept of soundscape to be a “miraculous, qualitative and hedonis- tic concept”[4]. Their focus instead is on the effect that sound causes to other agents of the reality, not blurring a static image but a dynamic complexity of actions, causes and effects. Brandon Labelle describes Augoyard and Torgue’s notion of ‘sonic effect” as a paradigm of a multi-sensorial, multi-disciplinary, multi- dimensional and relational concept for describing the production, transmission and reception, on a physical, cultural and informational mean, of the sound [5]. For Labelle, sound is a multiple entity, due of the multi- plicity of its relational affordances. Sound is a trajectory, a vehicle of information, a network and a model for inter- action of bodies in their private and public spheres. This perspective reinforces the consideration of sound as a relational medium, analysing its effect on urbanity. Ac- cording to LaBelle, the city, as a particular sonic geography, highlights sound's inherent dynamic to "disintegrate and reconfig- ure", bringing forward its spatial and temporal particu- larities.[5] 1.1 Soundmaps One key activity in the field of acoustic ecology is soundmapping. Soundmaps are visualisations of sonic activities related to geographical place. According to Schafer’s definition of soundscape, the more soundmarks Copyright: © 2012 Alessandro Altavilla et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 Unported, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. SMC2012-157