Soundchain is an interactive sound game based on a sci-fi story. Players are invited to imagine themselves as residents of a future space and time, sent to Earth to perform a vital mission: re-discover and collectively re-construct a soundscape whose memory had been preserved in dreams that have begun to disappear. The game is based on co-creation rather than on competition. The challenge is to seek out and record a unique sonic element to add to a collectively built chain of recordings. Soundchain loops indefinitely. Players must first listen carefully to the existing sequence, the soundchain constructed by their co-players so far, in the attempt to capture the specified sonic environment. The loop evolves in a dynamic user-generated soundscape. In its seemingly random form, particular snippets of engagement with the immediate environment and fellow players emerge. Individual players act as part of an abstract, yet intimate, collective that interacts with the physical/digital world through a process of careful listening and sound recording.
Impact: Soundchain is based on the allegory of blockchain and the structure of data in our contemporary digital worlds, as well as on the psychic-physical notion of sound as memory. Sound, in some of its forms, can be another block of data. It can also serve as a portal to another time and space. In consideration of the recent paradigm of blockchain as an open and distributed way of organizing data, we propose the Soundchain: a public sensorial data sequence that does not break. It only grows, as long as players engage.
Through the game, players not only get familiar with data forms and structures, but also creatively contribute to them, as they are encouraged to explore the sonic environment, and hence their environment more broadly, in unconventional ways. The act of listening is intensified, as the microphone enhances the auditory focus and reveals detailed facets of surroundings, previously thought to be mundane. At the same time, players are invited to carefully listen to the input of the others. This way, the dynamics of individual and collective creative patterns are creatively explored.
Soundchain is also an engagement with the production of the archive and the impossibility of capturing everything that composes our environment. Players are confronted with the selectivity of what counts as data, with the difference between the recorded soundchain loop and immediate sonic experience. What becomes data and who produces them? Can the entire sonic memory be recaptured? The sci-fi narrative of Soundchain allows us to creatively re-imagine (our) urban presents and futures through sonic environments and their (ir)reproducibility, collectively constructing a sound archive, while we speculate on the various archival processes in the era of the [data]base.
How to play
Players, either teams or individuals, start at the listening station.
There, they are invited to listen to the “soundchain”, which consists of a brief recorded
Soundchain is an interactive sound game based on a sci-fi story. Players are invited to imagine themselves as residents of a future space and time, sent to Earth to perform a vital mission: re-discover and collectively re-construct a soundscape whose memory had been preserved in dreams that have begun to disappear. The game is based on co-creation rather than on competition. The challenge is to seek out and record a unique sonic element to add to a collectively built chain of recordings. Soundchain loops indefinitely. Players must first listen carefully to the existing sequence, the soundchain constructed by their co-players so far, in the attempt to capture the specified sonic environment. The loop evolves in a dynamic user-generated soundscape. In its seemingly random form, particular snippets of engagement with the immediate environment and fellow players emerge. Individual players act as part of an abstract, yet intimate, collective that interacts with the physical/digital world through a process of careful listening and sound recording.
Impact: Soundchain is based on the allegory of blockchain and the structure of data in our contemporary digital worlds, as well as on the psychic-physical notion of sound as memory. Sound, in some of its forms, can be another block of data. It can also serve as a portal to another time and space. In consideration of the recent paradigm of blockchain as an open and distributed way of organizing data, we propose the Soundchain: a public sensorial data sequence that does not break. It only grows, as long as players engage.
Through the game, players not only get familiar with data forms and structures, but also creatively contribute to them, as they are encouraged to explore the sonic environment, and hence their environment more broadly, in unconventional ways. The act of listening is intensified, as the microphone enhances the auditory focus and reveals detailed facets of surroundings, previously thought to be mundane. At the same time, players are invited to carefully listen to the input of the others. This way, the dynamics of individual and collective creative patterns are creatively explored.
Soundchain is also an engagement with the production of the archive and the impossibility of capturing everything that composes our environment. Players are confronted with the selectivity of what counts as data, with the difference between the recorded soundchain loop and immediate sonic experience. What becomes data and who produces them? Can the entire sonic memory be recaptured? The sci-fi narrative of Soundchain allows us to creatively re-imagine (our) urban presents and futures through sonic environments and their (ir)reproducibility, collectively constructing a sound archive, while we speculate on the various archival processes in the era of the [data]base.
How to play
Players, either teams or individuals, start at the listening station.
There, they are invited to listen to the “soundchain”, which consists of a brief recorded introduction to the game’s concept and the sci-fi narrative framework (the game’s “genesis block”). A detailed text of game instructions is also available. As the game proceeds the soundchain becomes augmented and complexified via player-generated “sonic block” additions.
After listening to the soundchain, players are challenged to contribute a unique addition to the soundchain by “capturing” a new, as yet unrecorded element of the sonic environment. The environment consists of a site-specific designated game area defined for each new iteration of the game. Each player/team may add to the game maximum 2 sound clips of 15 seconds (the exact parameters may be adjusted according to expected attendance.)
After recording players must return to the listening station. There, the recorded clips are transferred by the Soundchain team to the listening station computer and added to the user-generated sequence of soundchain blocks. This is a transparent process for anyone to see within the listening area. All new inputs, drags+drops, additions of the new sound recordings to the collective soundchain, are visible and audible to all, through a real-time projection within the room.
Players are then invited to stay in the area and listen to the renewed soundchain loop and its extended version, augmented by their contribution added at the end.
Specs/ Equipment:
a small room within the exhibition space (ideally in a quiet spot)
1-2 laptops
3 recorder sets (recorder + headphones)
1 stereo speaker set
1 projector and a surface for projection
1 table and some chairs or pillows
access to the outside of the exhibition building for the players
Target Group: We hope our game will be enjoyed by everyone as no particular knowledge is required.
SOUNDCHAIN TEAM:
Gatou Ismini, PhD student, Department of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean, i.gatou@aegean.gr
Iashvili Nanuka, BA Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, Bard College Berlin, n.iashvili20@gmail.com
Karadedos Tasos, Sound Designer - Cultural Anthropologist, saveoursound@gmail.com
Koukouladakis Antonios, BA in Social Anthropology, Panteion University, homer6781@gmail.com
Lazaridou Eirini, PhD Candidate - Researcher, Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Thessaly, eilazari@uth.gr
Mulvaney Kelly, Researcher - Translator, Eipcp - European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, PhD student, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, kmulvaney@uchicago.edu
Nicholas Smith, PhD Student, Anthropology, University of Toronto, nickjosh.smith@mail.utoronto.ca
Valajärvi Anni, BA in Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki, MA student (same Department/University), anni.valajarvi@helsinki.fi
Vardouli Eftychia, Cultural Manager - Researcher, MA Panteion University, BA Economic Science AUEB, evardouli@gmail.com
Impact: Soundchain is based on the allegory of blockchain and the structure of data in our contemporary digital worlds, as well as on the psychic-physical notion of sound as memory. Sound, in some of its forms, can be another block of data. It can also serve as a portal to another time and space. In consideration of the recent paradigm of blockchain as an open and distributed way of organizing data, we propose the Soundchain: a public sensorial data sequence that does not break. It only grows, as long as players engage.
Through the game, players not only get familiar with data forms and structures, but also creatively contribute to them, as they are encouraged to explore the sonic environment, and hence their environment more broadly, in unconventional ways. The act of listening is intensified, as the microphone enhances the auditory focus and reveals detailed facets of surroundings, previously thought to be mundane. At the same time, players are invited to carefully listen to the input of the others. This way, the dynamics of individual and collective creative patterns are creatively explored.
Soundchain is also an engagement with the production of the archive and the impossibility of capturing everything that composes our environment. Players are confronted with the selectivity of what counts as data, with the difference between the recorded soundchain loop and immediate sonic experience. What becomes data and who produces them? Can the entire sonic memory be recaptured? The sci-fi narrative of Soundchain allows us to creatively re-imagine (our) urban presents and futures through sonic environments and their (ir)reproducibility, collectively constructing a sound archive, while we speculate on the various archival processes in the era of the [data]base.
How to play
Players, either teams or individuals, start at the listening station.
There, they are invited to listen to the “soundchain”, which consists of a brief recorded
Soundchain is an interactive sound game based on a sci-fi story. Players are invited to imagine themselves as residents of a future space and time, sent to Earth to perform a vital mission: re-discover and collectively re-construct a soundscape whose memory had been preserved in dreams that have begun to disappear. The game is based on co-creation rather than on competition. The challenge is to seek out and record a unique sonic element to add to a collectively built chain of recordings. Soundchain loops indefinitely. Players must first listen carefully to the existing sequence, the soundchain constructed by their co-players so far, in the attempt to capture the specified sonic environment. The loop evolves in a dynamic user-generated soundscape. In its seemingly random form, particular snippets of engagement with the immediate environment and fellow players emerge. Individual players act as part of an abstract, yet intimate, collective that interacts with the physical/digital world through a process of careful listening and sound recording.
Impact: Soundchain is based on the allegory of blockchain and the structure of data in our contemporary digital worlds, as well as on the psychic-physical notion of sound as memory. Sound, in some of its forms, can be another block of data. It can also serve as a portal to another time and space. In consideration of the recent paradigm of blockchain as an open and distributed way of organizing data, we propose the Soundchain: a public sensorial data sequence that does not break. It only grows, as long as players engage.
Through the game, players not only get familiar with data forms and structures, but also creatively contribute to them, as they are encouraged to explore the sonic environment, and hence their environment more broadly, in unconventional ways. The act of listening is intensified, as the microphone enhances the auditory focus and reveals detailed facets of surroundings, previously thought to be mundane. At the same time, players are invited to carefully listen to the input of the others. This way, the dynamics of individual and collective creative patterns are creatively explored.
Soundchain is also an engagement with the production of the archive and the impossibility of capturing everything that composes our environment. Players are confronted with the selectivity of what counts as data, with the difference between the recorded soundchain loop and immediate sonic experience. What becomes data and who produces them? Can the entire sonic memory be recaptured? The sci-fi narrative of Soundchain allows us to creatively re-imagine (our) urban presents and futures through sonic environments and their (ir)reproducibility, collectively constructing a sound archive, while we speculate on the various archival processes in the era of the [data]base.
How to play
Players, either teams or individuals, start at the listening station.
There, they are invited to listen to the “soundchain”, which consists of a brief recorded introduction to the game’s concept and the sci-fi narrative framework (the game’s “genesis block”). A detailed text of game instructions is also available. As the game proceeds the soundchain becomes augmented and complexified via player-generated “sonic block” additions.
After listening to the soundchain, players are challenged to contribute a unique addition to the soundchain by “capturing” a new, as yet unrecorded element of the sonic environment. The environment consists of a site-specific designated game area defined for each new iteration of the game. Each player/team may add to the game maximum 2 sound clips of 15 seconds (the exact parameters may be adjusted according to expected attendance.)
After recording players must return to the listening station. There, the recorded clips are transferred by the Soundchain team to the listening station computer and added to the user-generated sequence of soundchain blocks. This is a transparent process for anyone to see within the listening area. All new inputs, drags+drops, additions of the new sound recordings to the collective soundchain, are visible and audible to all, through a real-time projection within the room.
Players are then invited to stay in the area and listen to the renewed soundchain loop and its extended version, augmented by their contribution added at the end.
Specs/ Equipment:
a small room within the exhibition space (ideally in a quiet spot)
1-2 laptops
3 recorder sets (recorder + headphones)
1 stereo speaker set
1 projector and a surface for projection
1 table and some chairs or pillows
access to the outside of the exhibition building for the players
Target Group: We hope our game will be enjoyed by everyone as no particular knowledge is required.
SOUNDCHAIN TEAM:
Gatou Ismini, PhD student, Department of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean, i.gatou@aegean.gr
Iashvili Nanuka, BA Economics, Politics, and Social Thought, Bard College Berlin, n.iashvili20@gmail.com
Karadedos Tasos, Sound Designer - Cultural Anthropologist, saveoursound@gmail.com
Koukouladakis Antonios, BA in Social Anthropology, Panteion University, homer6781@gmail.com
Lazaridou Eirini, PhD Candidate - Researcher, Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Thessaly, eilazari@uth.gr
Mulvaney Kelly, Researcher - Translator, Eipcp - European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies, PhD student, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, kmulvaney@uchicago.edu
Nicholas Smith, PhD Student, Anthropology, University of Toronto, nickjosh.smith@mail.utoronto.ca
Valajärvi Anni, BA in Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki, MA student (same Department/University), anni.valajarvi@helsinki.fi
Vardouli Eftychia, Cultural Manager - Researcher, MA Panteion University, BA Economic Science AUEB, evardouli@gmail.com