This year, Soundtrackcity collaborates with various universities and colleges. Students from a wide range of disciplines, from social geography to interaction design, investigate how listening can contribute to a deeper understanding of our urban environment.
At Anna’s Garden & Ruigte, students from Amsterdam University College (AUC) created an informative audio walk through the garden. Their walk invites listeners to listen to ecology, urban nature, and the interaction between people and their environment with different ears.
Listening was also put to scientific use in Delft. Master’s students in Interaction Design at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (TU Delft) investigated how pedestrians physically experience street sounds. Using somaesthetics and microphenomenology, they mapped subtle physical responses to urban sounds – an innovative way of understanding the relationship between body, space, and sound. The students themselves will present the results at the GTL (Sound, Vibrations, and Air Quality) Conference on November 11 and 12. More information about this can be found here.
Students from the Bachelor’s program in Social Geography and Urban Planning of the University of Amsterdam set to work designing their own sensory walk under the guidance of Dr. Inge van der Welle. In their assignments, they explored the city in two phases: first in a ‘realistic’ map phase, in which they analytically recorded the environment, and then in an ‘idealistic’ phase, in which a five-minute audio track transported the participant into their personal sensory imagination of the city.
Soundtrackcity also gave a guest lecture to students of the course Amsterdam: Sense, Space and Public Design. After the lecture, the students took two audio walks through the Nieuwmarkt neighborhood and completed an assignment in which they analyzed their listening experiences. This allowed them to actively experience how sound and space influence each other in the city.
Soundtrackcity can guide students in their research into urban space and provide them with listening methods that enable them to explore the city in a new way, not only as a physical space, but also as an inspirited space that is constantly being reshaped by the interaction of all the actors present. This is a process that can be explored par excellence through listening.
Are you also looking for a collaboration between Soundtrackcity and your students, faculty, or program?
Feel free to contact us, and we will explore the possibilities together!
