A listening experience meant to provide acoustic augmentation to the industrial urban landscape and a connection to the site-specific essence of a place. A city, named after the trees that dotted the landscape, is now known for more metaphorical wildlife, industrial activity and handling the lion’s share of the Bay Area’s port activity. Like many cities, Oakland has become a concrete expanse, currently filled with a cacophony of sounds from construction, freeways, neighbors and the background hum of persistent Nature. With few and far between greenspaces insulated from the psychological grounding of the evolving city around it, acoustic design and perception augmentation is used as an experimental ecological-hack.
This project consists of field recordings captured and composed entirely within the city limits- offering an alternative experience of Oakland. Recordings are processed in the artist work flow before being fed to an algorithm to produce an unsupervised generative soundscape. Borrowing from the concept of forest bathing, this recording intends to immerse the listener in the natural essence of modern day Oakland.
Side A (High Interaction): A bath of layered interaction acts to displace your surroundings and transport you into the digital-natural world. Ends with space for re-composition before Side B.
Side B (Low Interaction): In contrast to Side A- a more isolated exploration of the sculpted sound recordings. Interaction parameter tuned to allow for lower interaction of individual recordings.
The listening experience can be had anywhere, of course, however the listener is suggested to playback with the aid of in-ear or over-ear noise cancelling headphones.
Recorded at Lake Merritt, Middle Shore Park, Pill Hill and Joaquin Miller Park. Made possible by the generous financial support of the City of Oakland’s (2019-2020) Cultural Arts Grant Program.
