IMPROVe is an aural architecture for socio-cultural exchange. Sonic realities of the everyday are improvised live in a non-linear mode. Local and remote audiences contribute and access open content.
IMPROVe explores the role of the mobile phone user as a creator of her/ his own content. It attempts to define the mobile device as a tool for environment awareness by making the user conscious of their immediate sonic surrounding. By exploring the role of the mobile phone as a medium of sonic content creation and exchange, we propose the understanding of the music making mobile device as a medium of empowerment.
Video from an IMPROVe performance at Helsinki Central Station during Pixelache 2006. Sounds recorded on site from the railway station were used in an open improvisation with the IMPROVe mobile phone software.
Scenario
A group of friends record sound objects and soundscapes from their daily life through a mobile device. The group meets in a local pub, where there is a sound system for playing the gathered sounds. They perform a live-remix of the sounds on their mobile devices. Through the sonic improvisation of their everyday soundscape, they affect their experience of the here and the now.
Functionality
IMPROVe collects sound via a mobile device and sends them to a location where they can be played back into a soundsystem. The same mobile device controls the playback of the collected sounds in the soundsystem. Playback control occurs in the physical location of the soundsystem. The playbacked sounds are processed live via interaction on the mobile device. The output of the processed sound can be directly heard through the soundsystem.
Background
The everyday sounds that we experience are produced outside of our own volition. The capacity to capture sounds, however, was not possible till the invention of electro-magnetic recording devices in the early twentieth century. Since then, the separation of sound from its source, and the capability to play it back, has made it possible to listen to sounds outside of its original context. The mobile phone is also a medium through which sounds are heard outside of their original context. However, the normative definition of the mobile phone as a medium for communication has restricted its potential as a medium for sounds that exist outside of the immediate tele-communication. IMPROVe is a design and research project that explores the potential of the mobile phone as a medium of communication beyond its currently dominant role as a transmitter of sounds. The project proposes the design of the mobile phone as a medium for the exchange of everyday sounds within communities and across socio-cultural contexts by mobilizing the potential of the mobile phone as a tool for the production of everyday sounds. To listen carefully to the environment is something we want to emphasize in our design. We believe that when the possibility to record and work creatively with the sonic environment exists, then a higher awareness of our environment is achieved. Needless to say, the playback of the recorded sonic environment is only a representation of it. But to work consciously with this representation is what, we believe, heightens our awareness of our sonic environment.
The IMPROVe project was initiated as the joint masters thesis work of Richard Widerberg and Zeenath Hasan at the MA New Media programme of the University of Art and Design Helsinki.
IMPROVe - Exploring modes of listening (pdf)
Richard Widerberg’s Master thesis about IMPROVe
Access video and sound-files belonging to the thesis here.
Abstract: In my thesis I explore how listening is shaped by the noise and sound reproduction machines of modernity to understand how this has influenced our environmental sonic awareness. I present a positive viewpoint of my experiences from working with sound, music and technology. From this viewpoint I introduce IMPROVe which is a concept for listening to, recording and improvising with the sounds from everyday life. The practical implementation of this concept includes the experimental use of mobile phones for engaging with the sonic environment. I developed a working prototype using the mobile phone and the computer to enhance the activities in the IMPROVe concept. It has been used in workshops and performances where the idea has been to work with site-specific sounds to promote the attentive and critical listening to the environment by the participants.
IMPROVe - Enabling the conditions for a heightened perception of the environment (pdf)
Zeenath Hasan’s Master thesis about IMPROVe
Abstract: My thesis project facilitates the imagination and production of an artifact called IMPROVe. It mobilizes the potential of the mobile phone as a medium for environmental awareness by introducing it as an interface for engaging with the sounds that surround us. My thesis project adopts a collaborative design approach in order to evolve a collective concept of the IMPROVe artefact. The design process involves interacting with groups of people around an initial concept that is used as a common point of reference. The artefact that evolves as a result of the interactions carried out till date is IMPROVe, an enabler of a heightened perception of the environment.
Poster: The mobile phone as a medium for heightened sonic perception (pdf)
Published in ACM International Conference Proceeding Series; Vol. 159:
Proceedings of the 8th conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile devices and services
Abstract: In this paper, we describe the design and research phase of a project that aims to create conditions for heightened sonic perception through a mobile phone based software application. The initial design concept is that of an aural architecture for sonic socio-cultural exchange where sonic realities of the everyday are improvised live in a non-linear mode. The design approach adopted is collaborative. The project is a work in progress.
