INTRODUCTION

An online open source database of city sounds and soundmaps from around the world using online found sounds and field recordings. The soundmaps and the database can be listened to, used in performances, or played on mobiles via wireless networks. Initially all sounds by Stanza, you can now contribute your own found sounds.

 

This interactive website called soundcities.com allows the audience as creative user the possibility to remix the hundreds of samples recorded from around the worldon various soundmaps. Soundcities is an open online database of the thousands of sounds from around the world and you can visits the various cities and create soundmaps.. The website also has series on online mixing desks where you can mix these sounds. Soundcities uses city recorded soundscapes from world cities made over the last twelve years.

The database allows full open sourced access and listening to the individual sounds. The Database is also open so anyone can upload sounds they collect from world cities, thereby making a contribution to the project and the soundmaps thus creating an online sounds archive.

Soundcities is the first online open source found sound database of city sounds and soundmaps. Stanza's soundmaps have been online since 2000 and the database since 2004. The project is now much copied by academics as well as The British library Soundmap and The BBC.

LISTEN TO SOUNDS BY CITY: aarhus, albany, new york, amsterdam, bamako, bangkok, barcelona, beijing, belo horizonte, bergen, berlin, bilbao, birmingham, bogotá, bristol, brussels, budapest, buenos aires, cagliari, cairo, camberwell, caracas, champaign, chicago, cork, dalian, den haag, dresden, esquerdes, genzano di roma, gothenburg, granada, graz, halifax nova scotia , hamburg, helsinki, istanbul, kobe, la laguna, lisboa, liverpool, ljubiana, london, los angeles, lviv, marseille, mexico, montevideo, montpellier, munich, napoli, new delhi, new york, paris, perugia, pivdene, portland oregon, porto, prague, rabat, rio de janeiro, roma, rotterdam, salzburg, san francisco, san sebastian, sao paulo, scarborough, seoul, shanghai, stuttgart, suzhou, taipei, tel-aviv, thessaloniki, tokyo, toulouse, trieste, uhtrect, vienna, wroclaw, yogyakarta

LISTEN TO SOUNDS BY MOOD: ambient, atmosphere, beat, birds, boredom, churches, industrial, mechanical, music, noisy, people, rythm, sirens, speaking, traffic, travel, voices, weather

I have spent the last 20 years traveling to over 20 worldwide cities. During this time I have collected and recorded the sounds from these cities. I also took thousands of photos. I have been to sao paolo, london, paris, dresden, amsterdam, saltburg, graz, rotterdam, barcelona, san sebastian, manchester, liverpool, ljubiana, frankfurt porto, istanbul, mexico city, new york.etc

The sounds of cities also give clues to the emotional and responsive way we interact with our cities. Cities all have specific identities, and found sound can give us clues to the people that inhabit these spaces, as well as provoking us and stimulating our senses in a musical way. I am interested in the sounds of specific places, and how the sounds reflect this identity and re-imposes characteristics back onto the location or environment.

The aim is to create an online aural experience that evokes place, both as literal description but also developed musical composition. The sounds of cities evoke memories. As globalization fractures the identity of the city experience we start to find things that appear the same the world over. A growing labyrinth, a community of aural cityscapes and collages is now evolving online.The nature of the sounds and noise of cities varies in tone and language. A background rhythm can come into the foreground. It mixes itself, and evolves. The city is its own music, constantly evolving, a beautiful composition of squeaks, clanks, and pulses we compose this orchestra as we move about. We control the interface of the city as we navigate the streets. We are familiar but distracted as it bombards our conscious slipstream. The sounds evolve, generate, move, die, fade and shift. The sounds of the city are out there all the time, there is no silence, the code does not stop. The children, the trains, the drills, the animals, the micro sounds, the sounds of our bodies, the sounds of the street, the insides of our souls. Familiar forms, identities and sounds are common to all cities, and yet each have special forms that separate and identity particular places and spaces.

I am interested in the sounds of specific places, and how the sounds reflect this identity and re-impose characteristics back onto the location or environment. Cities all have specific identities, and found sound can give us clues to the people that inhabit these spaces, as well as provoking us and stimulating our senses in a musical way. The sounds of language impose a rhythm that the visual narrative can interact with.

Soundcities sounds archive.This resource is now an open platform. The worlds fiRst online database of city sounds and soundmaps.

Stanza - Soundcities 2002

stanza

Soundcities is a project by Stanza. Stanza is an internationally recognised artist, who has been exhibiting worldwide since 1984. His artworks have won prestigious painting prizes and ten first prize art awards including:- Vidalife 6.0 First Prize. SeNef Grand Prix. Videobrasil First Prize. Stanzas art has also been rewarded with a prestigious Nesta Dreamtime Award, an Arts Humanities Creative Fellowship and a Clarks bursary award. His artworks have been exhibited globally with over fifty exhibitions in the last five years including:- Venice Biennale: Victoria Albert Museum: Tate Britain: Mundo Urbano Madrid: New Forest Pavilion Artsway: State Museum, Novorsibirsk. Biennale of Sydney, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo Mexico: Plymouth Arts Centre: ICA London: Sao Paulo Biennale:

His mediums include; painting, video, prints, generative artworks and installations. Stanza is an expert in arts technology, CCTV, online networks, touch screens, environmental sensors, and interactive artworks. Recurring themes throughout his career include, the urban landscape, surveillance culture and alienation in the city.

www.stanza.co.uk

Copyright soundcities. 2000 - 20010 . All rights reserved.

KEYWORDS. soundmaps, soundcities, urban sounds, city, field recording , noise maps