Cidades Sonoras #4 (Sound Cities #4)
A Sound Mapping project of Portuguese Cities
April – June 2014
City of São Pedro do Sul
Directed by Luís Costa (Binaural/Nodar) with teachers and students from São Pedro do Sul secondary school
Co-Production by Binaural/Nodar and the School Group of São Pedro do Sul
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.
The specific project in São Pedro do Sul will have five major themes for the sound recordings to address: traditional commerce, public services rurality within the city, the river Vouga and the São Pedro do Sul spa.