Cidades Sonoras (Sound Cities)
And educational project by Binaural/Nodar

Baixa da Banheira Civil Parish, Moita Municipality (PT)
December 15th – 18th, 2012
Coordinator: Luís Costa
Multimedia support: Nely Ferreira

Target participants: Children and youths from 10 to 14 years old
Capacity: 15 participants

Sound Cities is a sound mapping educational project of Portuguese urban spaces. Guided by monitors, a group of participants from the specific social / geographical context record sounds that according to them best characterize the area, also noting the geographic coordinates of each sound, alongside with other contextualizing information and photographic records.

The project seeks to highlight the specific acoustics of each city and each neighborhood, despite the growing homogenization of contemporary urban spaces. The project is structured to stimulate both the attention to small details like the intergenerational contact in which the voices of the city’s memory of other times can play a decisive role.

This connection with local participants and their memory of the city is a crucial aspect of the project. That is, the project specifically proposes new insights and technological tools to re-connect communities with their urban spaces, to trigger sound memories, perhaps to add some sparks of self-esteem to those who are attending irreversible transformations of the city.

The end result of the activity will be the creation of a collective catalog of sounds mapped on a digital map, that will also be publicly presented to the city / neighborhood.

This Sound Cities project will be developed with young people (10-14 years) in the Baixa da Banheira parish, Moita municipality, Setúbal district. This civil parish has mixed characteristics between urban, rural and riverside communities.