Sonic City is a project exploring mobile interaction and wearable technology for everyday music creation. We have designed, implemented and evaluated a system that creates electronic music based on sensing bodily and environmental factors. Mapping these to the real-time processing of concrete sounds, Sonic City generates a personal soundscape co-produced by physical movement, local activity, and urban ambiance. Encounters, events, architecture, (mis)behaviours – all become means of interacting with or 'playing the city'. In this project, our intention is to break out of traditional contexts for music creation to explore creative possibilities within local surroundings and mundane activities.

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Project team
This project is a collaboration between the Interactive Institute and the Viktoria Institute. The project team includes: Lalya Gaye (FAL, Viktoria Institute), Margot Jacobs (PLAY, Interactive Institute), Ramia Mazé (PLAY, Interactive Institute) and Daniel Skoglund (8Tunnel2). Participating masters students from the IT University Göteborg include: Sara Lerén (Cognitive Science) and Magnus Johansson (HCI/Interaction Design).

The PLAY studio has received funding for this research from VINNOVA, the Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems, through the IT + Textiles project and is also a project in the Public Play Spaces research theme.