Bang…Hisssssss…Clunk…Whirrrrrrr ！ 

— Sonograms of New York City

Project, Piece, Work, Experience

Bang…Hisssssss…Clunk…Whirrrrrrr! is a data visualization project reveals the manmade, yet mostly unheard, sound networks that are a continuous byproduct of the city machine. We move through the streets unaware that we are entangled in these droning webs of noise.

By using data sculpting, this project captures and displays constantly unrecognized reverberations that exist in our environment.  The piece uses specific algorithms to process this information and transfers them to images imposed on landscapes being viewed through a phone or a tablet. The work’s info-data subtracts, filters, and ultimately overlays 3D organic visuals. These forms represent the pulses of the infrastructure system of New York City.

When the participant plugs in their headphones, lifts their phones and walks down the street, they will experience the amplification of subtle sounds of the city at spots tagged by construction signs, fire hydrants, and construction markers on pavement and sidewalks….interface to access sounds generated underground beneath the pavement by the “A-tag”, a construction marks over the street roads and indicates a different type of works with different colors. It is used as the portal to sound that mapping interface to the existing symbolic system construction signs, fire hydrants, and construction markers on pavement and sidewalks. These systems can usually be read by technicians, such as pipe-layers, and firefighters.

As is one of the most important parts of my AR app, A-tag is going to carry the visuals and soundtracks in a list of locations and store these messages at site-specific locations in the app. Each color of an A-tag is responsible for one type of construction work. This project is categorizing noise soundscapes in the city by infusing the colors of A-tags into the 3D data sculptures, as the mixture of colors will directly reflect the properties of these soundscapes.