The Echo Location sound map is a participatory on-line and off-line artwork that combines listening, audio ecology, social networking and graphic scores. It was created by in collaboration with digital artist Ed Holroyd, and commissioned by Bedford Creative Arts for a series of sound recording walks and to create a personalised soundmap of Bedford. Bedford Listening walks took place on from July to November 2011 where people went out to record their version of Bedford’s soundscape.

Alongside being able to interact with the soundmap by actively recording and uploading sounds, the online interface is designed so it can be played like a sequencer, giving the user the opportunity to create overlapping soundscapes.

Here is a movie showing the online map being ‘played’… please watch in HD, so you can see the text on screen….

“Wherever we are, what we hear mostly is noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating. The sound of a truck at fifty miles an hour. Static between the stations. Rain. ….  we can compose and perform a quartet for explosive motor, wind, heartbeat and landslide.”

Quote taken from  ”The Future of Music: Credo”  Silence, Lectures and Writings by John Cage, published in 1971. This text was first delivered by Cage as a talk at a meeting of Seattle Arts Society organized by Bonnie Bird in 1937.