locus sonus > Proj Fitzgerald

Projets (2008-2010)

Scott Fitzgerald

Bio Scott Fitzgerald

Realisation : Sonic Cartography

Project was inspired by the workshop we did at Luminy, using GPS as a means of triggering sound events on a sound walk. Combining this with my interest in filed recordingns and mapping, I started to formulate a notion of mapping urban environments with sound. Embodiment in the sense that we are imposibg our person into space. Tagging the world because it's suggested we are clueless and unable to survive (make us more aware of our surroundings). pachube was an early inspiation an opensource data sharing

Theory

Urbanism

DIY environmental monitoring :: a post-cinematic experience, extends to scale beyond our immediate perceptual state

reinforce the attention given to sound in the urban space, via different modes of transportation tease out different aspects of the feed that we may typically tune out

markup as a means of incorporating a number of different practices :: social production as annotating the city

Execution

The primary goal was to pair up GPS information, which records location, altitude, and velocity, with an audio recording, synching up the time stamps so that a pairing could be reached.

First efforts

The first iteration was a hardware based implementation, paring an H2 zoom sound recorder with an Arduino+GPS which wrote the location to a SD card. this GPS information was parsed online to provide a representational map.

As this is supposed to be a frameworks for people to track sound in space at specific points in time, any number of outcomes is possible with the paired data. As an example, I used the information to spatialized a number of recordings in a different space, using the gps data as a means to drive the sound around the space. This was achieved with a Max patch using the Ambisonics externals from the ICST I made these tests at the University of Newcastle's Culture Lab as a visiting professor with the support of the staff and faculty there.

Current status

As this is a mapping utility, it was always hoped that this platform would be available on mobile devices. As such, I've been working on an Android and iPhone version of the application. Mobile developer Shawn Van Evry has been helping me with these implementation, particularly the Android versions. This has led me to a number of different avenues of new research,including working with a team of develpers porting Pure Data to the Android platform, Processing for Android, and working with new cross platform mobile device development tools, like titanium developer.

URL :

http://www.soniccartography.com/

Development

The work I propose to complete in France is the first stage of a larger art and research project. The project itself involves new means of interpreting space through aggregated sensor information.

There are three parts to this project :

• 1.Building a GPS/timestamp logger with an associated audio recording device. This device is a hardware prototype that will be used to test the system’s overall efficacy.
• 2.Once the hardware prototype has established itself as a means of combining navigational data with sound (in the form of field recordings), I will commence development of a software application for cellphones. I will initially target Google’s Android platform and Apple’s iPhone.
• 3.Concurrently with the development of the software, and after the initial build of the hardware prototype, I will begin experimenting with different forms of interpreting this data. Physical installations, websites and other means of navigation are potential outlets.

While in France I will build out the hardware prototype, with a GPS module attached to a microcontroller and SD card for data logging. Audio recording will happen with a different device. The audio recorder must have a time stamp that matches the GPS data. Once I have verified the syncing of the data between the two devices, I will take some sample recordings, and make the data publicly available. I will also make available the code and circuit schematics from the hardware prototype.

The second part of the research will take place over the summer of 2009, with various interpretations manifesting themselves as more information is collected. the software will be distributed to beta testers, and the code will be made available.