Fictitious Soundscapes

ABSTRACT

The project aims to develop and test an interface for creating soundscapes of a virtual urban city environment. The intended users are hearing impaired, who have radically different hearing sensations than normal hearing. The expected project outcome is a collection of fictitious soundscapes that are further analysed to better understand the preferences for sound, noise and music among this particular group. In the proposed project, we will have produced a web-based application for rapid design of soundscapes, a palette of source sounds from a workshop with hearing impaired users, data from using the prototype, a collection of users' tendencies of adding music to the fictitious, future urban sound environment, and a model of sound features that should be present in a soundscape in the given scenario. Given the risk that the interests of hearing impaired will have low priority in designing urban sound environments, our project work towards inclusion and ensuring that citizens with sensory impairments get an appreciable experience when visiting future, sound-designed urban areas. The resulting soundscapes produced by the indicated users of the prototype should inform all stakeholders such as sound designers, industry, and decision makers in a future design process. These soundscapes will also be artistic expressions from users with diverse preconditions for hearing, and as such interesting to the general public.

Team

Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen, KTH, kjetil@kth.se .
Sandra Pauletto, KTH.
Ricardo Atienza, Konstfack.
Klas Dykhoff, Uniarts.

Advisor on disability and method: Rumi Hiraga, NTUT Japan

Start date
Februari 1, 2020
End date
September 30, 2020