UrbanRemix

UrbanRemix is a collaborative and locative sound project that enables participants to explore, develop and express the acoustic identity of communities, based on sounds they discover, record, and remix. Participants use mobile phone software to record and share geo-tagged sounds captured from the urban environment. Web-based tools enable anyone to browse and remix those sounds with an intuitive map-based interface. Through this project, neighborhoods are reframed and experienced anew as unique soundscapes. The project stages participants as musicians who discover the musicality of their surroundings as well as their own creativity.

I created UrbanRemix in collaboration with Carl DiSalvo and Michael Nitsche, and over several years, we mounted UrbanRemix projects including performances, education, and outreach in San Francisco (City Centered Festival), Atlanta (Art on the Beltline; summer camps and afterschool programs with Atlanta Public Schools and the Woodruff Arts Center; and an artist residency program with the Ferst Center for the Arts at Georgia Tech), New York (Times Square Arts Alliance; American Composers Orchestra SONiC Festival), Milwaukee, Middletown (Connecticut), Belo Horizonte (Brazil), and others. We brought in artist collaborators including Jade Simmons, Ken Ueno, Damon Holzborn, Travis Thatcher, Jeff Snyder, and Sam Pluta.

UrbanRemix was retired in 2014 as our aging server began to decline. However, an archive of submitted sounds and projects remains available at http://urbanremix.gatech.edu. You can also view a brief video overview of the project or read some of our publications about the project.