Resounding Memory
Aural Augmented Reality
and the Retelling of History
V e R ó n i c a S o R i a – M a R t í n e z
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This text discusses sound art projects in which artists have used
augmented reality along with recordings or data of public spaces.
All the works mentioned here were carried out in Spain from 2010 A
2016. In them, memories become tied to the physical space through
social interactions facilitated by communication technologies; listeners
get involved through the use of mobile devices. These practices consider
the role of sound in the display of memories in the public space, così
configuring a subjective memory that contrasts with the institutional
narrations of the history of a place.
Exploring the spatial characteristics of a place has always
been an essential task of sound art. In doing so, ricordi
play a fundamental role, because they can present a counter-
narrative to the official history of that place. When a work
of art focuses on places whose historical meaning has been
erased by larger narratives or eroded by time, it acquires a
political and emotional significance. Gathering identifying
sounds and testimonies of those places constitutes an effort
to restore that significative dimension, which becomes both
personal and social, and both complements and contrasts
with the common perception of that place.
After a brief discussion of works articulating sound and
history, this text will focus mainly on three sound art projects
that originated in Spain from approximately 2010 A 2016
and the critical implications that derive from them, through
the interaction among social agents, the revision of history
based on memories and testimonies, and the analysis of spa-
tial relationships.
Space and MeMoRy
Sound art has contributed greatly to the recuperation of the
sounds and memories of a place, opening the door to a dia-
logic reflection about history, public spaces and the role of
public places in sustaining relationships of power and domi-
Verónica Soria-Martínez (artist, independent researcher).
E-mail:
Vedere
with this issue.
nance. Bill Fontana’s pioneering Entfernte Züge [1] relocated
the sounds from the busiest train station in Germany in the
1980s into the empty field that had hosted the busiest sta-
tion in Berlin before World War II. More recently, place and
history elicited geographic awareness and introspection in
Susan Phillipsz’s sound installations. Her work Lowlands
[2], which was awarded the Turner Prize in 2010, recreated a
sixteenth-century ballad and located it under three bridges
in Glasgow.
Allo stesso modo, soundwalks have some provenance in merging
the attention to spatial concepts with the act of walking. IL
term was first used by the members of the World Sound-
scape Project [3]. This practice, exhaustively investigated
by Hildegard Westerkamp [4], strongly resonates with the
work of the Situationists and psychogeography, which em-
phasized studying urban spaces by drifting around within
them (dérive). Technologies have contributed to the prolifer-
ation of soundwalks in diverse ways. For instance, Christina
Kubisch’s electrical walks [5] use specially built headphones
as devices that detect electromagnetic fields and then play
them as live urban compositions.
The use of augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality has
furthered this dialogue. As an example of the latter, Janet
Cardiff ’s walks incorporate historical and fictional elements
with recorded sounds of the space, using a binaural technique
that generates a 3D effect, contributing to a seamless integra-
tion of the real and the virtual [6]. In Blast Theory’s Rider
Spoke [7], audiences participate in mixed reality by riding
on a bike that has been outfitted with a handheld computer.
Edu Comelles’s 2014 work Walk & Talk. Huesca [8] makes
use of AR to present the recordings of people’s narrations
of their experiences in the town’s spaces, contributing to a
shared memory of them. The listener can download the re-
cordings to any mobile device by scanning QR codes distrib-
uted in postcards; later the listener reproduces the walks by
walking along the narrated routes. The recordings become
“the laying of dynamic and context-specific information over
the visual field of a user” [9], thus adding “information that is
directly related to the user’s immediate physical space” [10],
12
LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 27, pag. 12–16, 2017
doi:10.1162/LM J_a_01001 ©2017 ISAST
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Fig. 1.
escoitar.org,
NoTours, 2010–
2016. Screenshot
of online editor.
(© noTours @
without pretending an illusion of integration. In doing so, IL
recordings render together the three areas that Henri Lefeb-
vre called for in the study of space.
Lefebvre, whose work on the critique of everyday life
greatly infl uenced the Situationists, advocated a theory of
space that unites the physical, the mental and the social, In
order to study the “logico-epistemological space, the space
of social practice, the space occupied by sensory phenomena,
including products of the imagination such as projects and
projections, symbols and utopias” [11]. Th is becomes neces-
sary in order to produce a “kind of knowing which refuses to
acknowledge power” [12] and defi es the active role of space,
which is operational and instrumental [13], in sustaining the
socioeconomic system and its logic.
In Walk & Talk. Huesca, the physical space is examined
through the direct experience of the walks; the mental as-
pect connects with the refl ection on history through the par-
ticipants’ narratives and the produced perceptions of place;
and the social aspect is embodied in both the making and
the listening of these narrations. Th e testimonies attest to
the changes that occur in a place and how those changes in
turn bring about changes in social and power relationships.
For instance, Luis Antonio explains that “there used to be a
swarm of kids, this was a village that is not to be seen nowa-
days, now there’s nothing but machines, here, breaking it all
. . . everybody has to build stuff , so that . . . money keeps on
going and ends up where it has to go” [14]. Th is carries social
signifi cance and a not-so-veiled critique of local authorities,
contributing to a construction of knowledge that contrasts
with the way cities usually portray their history and progress.
connectiVity and Space
Th e contrast between the way institutions advertise a place
and the shared production of knowledge about that same
space takes form in the project NoTours, which was initi-
ated by the collective escoitar.org around 2010 and continued
until 2016. At a time when audio guides were a common re-
source for institutions to promote tourism in cities, NoTours
worked as a tool for individuals to create their own alter-
native routes with recordings of their choice. Th is, together
with workshops and collective soundwalks organized by the
group, created experiences of the sites that resulted in criti-
cal refl ections. Th e group coined the concept of augmented
aurality to refer to the use of AR in the realm of sound. In this
case, they used locative audio, or audio bound to a specifi c
place, by way of geolocalization.
NoTours was a long-term project consisting of an online
editor and an Android app. Users could design their sound-
walks ahead of time by uploading their recordings to the
online editor (Fig. 1), assigning a place to each recording
and creating an itinerary, as in an audio guide. Later, dur-
ing the walk, the GPS system in the mobile device detects
the listener’s exact location and the app launches the sounds
previously determined on the editor. Since its inception, nu-
merous projects were created by members of the collective,
as well as by other individuals, nationally and internationally,
which resulted in a registry of memories of the places fea-
tured in the walks. For instance, “Cimadevilla” [15] caratteristiche
sounds of this neighborhood, located in the oldest part of the
northern city of Gijón (Asturias), such as motorcycles, sea
waves, distant chatter, traditional songs and Pepe Bajamar, UN
popular neighbor who sings an ancient song and talks about
the history of the neighborhood.
Th e subversive aspect of this work resides in its projec-
tion of new “universes of reference” [16], tangible in the
audio walks, by creating versions of the city that belong to
the work’s participants, stemming from their sound collages
and narrations. Inoltre, the work establishes a dialogue
between these projections and the public space. In doing so,
it helps, in Félix Guattari’s terms, to produce multiple ex-
changes between the individual, the group and the machine,
off ering to the participants (whether producers or listen-
ers) the possibility to resingularize themselves [17]. In other
parole, the self takes shape given a set of conditions—many
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Soria-Martínez, Resounding Memory 13
of which emerge from the structures that configure everyday
life and that are defined by power [18], but the possibility
exists of using objects and media to generate meanings that
differ from those conditions imposed by the power structures
E, in so doing, of creating alternative forms of being. Questo
work thus constitutes an effort to counter the hegemonic
version of life in the cities, which too often projects a com-
modifiable façade profitable in the tourism market, oblivious
to the issues affecting the citizens. This critical use of the
media and of technological tools [19], as well as the sharing
of knowledge among the participants, becomes decisive for
sustaining plurality and dissent.
ViRtual MeMoRy and collectiVe MeMoRy
In this context, the work Las Calles Habladas, started in 2013
by Clara Boj and Diego Díaz, constitutes a tweak on the con-
cepts of AR mentioned above. An app [20] (Fig. 2), Quale
can be used anywhere, provides the listener with a randomly
generated walk of about 1 km, departing from the listener’s
current location, and displays the itinerary on an Android or
iOS mobile device. While the participants follow the gener-
ated path, the GPS system detects their exact location, ma il
app, instead of launching a predetermined audio, reproduces
a random selection of Google entries related to that place,
voiced by a robotic text reader.
The doubly random character of this work makes it, in the
words of its creators, a generative audio walk. Primo, the app
chooses its destination, looking for an angle between 0 E
360 degrees. Secondo, the app selects its readings randomly,
without a filter. This is to say, the artists have programmed
an algorithm that tracks information based on keywords and
geolocated searches in Google, but it is the Google results
that return the information [21]. Tuttavia, Google has its
own algorithms, which determine what data are found. In
this sense, the digital memory stored in Google—in turn de-
termined by the user’s settings and profile—collapses with
the direct experience of the physical space.
This app aims to challenge critically the way in which
new technologies are transforming human relationships and
especially how we live and relate in the public space [22],
Fig. 2. Diego Díaz and Clara Boj, Las Calles Habladas, 2013–present. Screenshots of the app. (© Clara Boj and Diego Díaz,
14 Soria-Martínez, Resounding Memory
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reflecting on how what we do in the digital space affects our
experience of the city and vice versa [23]. Díaz and Boj use
the app in performances (where a megaphone substitutes
for headphones) and workshops, with the question in mind
of “whether the digital city speaks to us . . . in a different
way depending on the neighborhood we are in, in order to
see if the digital space reflects the socio-economic nature of
the real space” [24]. Infatti, they have observed that the app
works as an extractor of digital information regarding the
space the user walks in [25]. The tension between the digital
representation of the city and how it informs our concept
about its spaces contrasts with, and simultaneously feeds, our
direct experience of the place.
The clash presented by this app invites a reflection on what
we know—and how we learn—about places. As Lev Mano-
vich put it, “All of these technologies [GPS and others] want
to make the map equal to the territory” [26], alluding to
Jorge Luis Borges’s story “On Exactitude in Science” [27].
Inoltre, Jean Baudrillard departs from Borges’s idea of
a map so exhaustive that it coincides point by point with the
territory, to state that we live in a world where the map has
substituted for the territory. Representation has become the
only reality, “substituting the signs of the real for the real”
[28]. Las Calles Habladas shows how a massive search engine
as powerful as Google can work as such a map, showing the
intertwining of data in interconnection with a place, together
with the actual experience of its spaces, which the map at-
tempts to take over.
While engaging with the artwork, the participants are en-
rolled in surveillance practices via the devices used—namely
their cellphones—and the geolocalization networks. How-
ever, multiple apps use these networks, including Google,
in order to refine their services, and in doing so they have
become an almost inevitable condition of everyday cellphone
use. Inoltre, these artworks are closer to the inverse sur-
veillance strategies known as sousveillance, or the activity
of the people themselves using technologies to watch and
record images “from the bottom up,” as opposed to being
watched from “above” [29]. In the NoTours example, IL
tracking tools are not just made visible but put in the hands
of the participants, so that their insights as “surveillees” can
be included and made trackable for further listeners. In Las
Calles Habladas, there is a relationship between our position
being tracked and the double process—first Google itself and
then the app—that inevitably mediates the discourse, invit-
ing reflection on how any medium meddles with our access
to information and our acquisition of knowledge.
concluSion
Through three different implementations of AR, the proj-
ects discussed here attempt to recuperate a collectively con-
structed memory and to establish a connection with space,
contrasting with the institutionally supported narration of
history. They succeed in putting the emerging technologies
of that moment under the higher priority of the artistic prem-
ises guiding them, and not vice versa. In the process, social
exchanges become crucial; these take place in the sharing of
personal narratives, in the sounds people connect to a space
and in the data narrations via Google entries.
In recent years, numerous apps have emerged that make
possible the layering of digital content over space physically
perceived as real, and often artworks’ main concern relates
to what the technology can do. In contrasto, here the technol-
ogy is just the medium that can best render the elements and
concepts unfolding in the three projects. The projects build
instead a sense of collectivity through social exchanges in the
public space, pointing at how these can challenge the logic of
power relationships. In doing so, they enrich artistic research
with social research methods that look into the dynamics of
micropolitics and hegemony.
Ringraziamenti
The author would like to express her sincere gratitude to the artists men-
tioned in this article for their kind collaboration and their clarifications
about their works.
8 E. Comelles, “Walk & Talk. Huesca, 2014,” Edu Comelles:
Gennaio 2017).
9 l. Manovich, “The Poetics of Augmented Space,” Visual Communica-
zione 5, No. 2, 219–240 (2016) P. 222.
References and Notes
10 Manovich [9] P. 224.
1 B. Fontana, Entfernte Züge, sound installation, Berlin, 1984.
2 S. Philipsz, Lowlands, sound installation, Glasgow, 2008/2010.
11 H. Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford and Cambridge, MA:
Blackwell, 1991). Originally published in French as La production de
l’espace. English translation by Donald Nicholson-Smith, P. 11.
3 “The World Soundscape Project”:
12 Lefebvre [11] P. 10.
(avuto accesso 21 May 2017).
4 H. Westerkamp, “Soundwalking,” Autumn Leaves, Sound and the
Environment in Artistic Practice (Paris: Ed. Angus Carlyle, Double
Entendre, 2007) P. 49.
5 C. Cox and C. Kubisch, “Invisible Cities: An Interview with Christina
Kubisch,” Cabinet, Issue 21: Electricity, Primavera 2006.
6 J. Cardiff, “Introduction to the Audio Walks”:
7 Blast Theory, Rider Spoke, England, 2007.
13 Lefebvre [11] P. 11.
14 See Comelles [8], “Luis Antonio.” Original quotation: “Es una plaza
que ha ido cambiando bastante . . . esto era un hervidero de críos,
aquí había una villa que hoy no se ve, hoy no se ven más que máqui-
nas por aquí, rompiéndolo todo . . . todo el mundo tiene que hacer
obras para que . . . se muevan los dinericos y vayan pues para quien
tienen que ir.” Translation by the author.
15 escoitar.org, “Cimadevilla [Gijón] (2009),” NoTours, soundwalks.
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Soria-Martínez, Resounding Memory 15
16 F. Guattari, Chaosmosis, An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm (Blooming-
ton and Indianapolis: Indiana Univ. Press, 1995) 136 pag. Originally
published in French as Chaosmose (Paris: Éditions Galilée, 1992).
English translation by Paul Bains and Julian Pefanis, P. 5.
17 Guattari [16] P. 7.
18 Guattari [16] P. 8.
19 Guattari [16] P. 5.
20 C. Boj and D. Díaz, “Las Calles Habladas”: Lalalab
21 D. Díaz, personal communication, 22 Dicembre 2016.
22 C. Boj and D. Díaz, “Las Calles Habladas,” Real Time, Arts Santa
Mònica,
ary 2017. Time: 0:18.
23 C. Boj and D. Díaz [22]. Time: 1:00.
24 C. Boj and D. Díaz [22]. Original quotation: “De qué manera la
ciudad digital nos habla, pero la pregunta es ¿nos habla de manera
diferente dependiendo en el barrio en el que estemos? para ver si
ese espacio digital refleja también la naturaleza socioeconómica del
espacio real” (author’s translation). Time: 2:26.
25 Díaz [21].
26 Manovich [9] P. 228.
27 J.L. Borges, “On Exactitude in Science,” Collected Fictions (New York:
Random House Penguin, 1999). Originally published in Spanish as
“Del rigor en la ciencia,” Los Anales de Buenos Aires, año 1, número
3 (Marzo 1946) P. 53. English translation by Andrew Hurley.
28 J. Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation (Ann Arbor: The University
of Michigan Press, 1994) 164 pag. Originally published in French as
Simulacres et Simulation (Paris: Éditions Galilée, 1981) P. 2. English
translation by Sheila Faria Glaser.
29 S. Mann, J. Nolan and B. Wellman, “Sousveillance: Inventing
and Using Wearable Computing Devices for Data Collection in
Surveillance Environments,” Surveillance & Società 1, No. 3, 331–355
(2003).
Manuscript received 2 Gennaio 2017.
Verónica Soria-Martínez is an artist, educator and
independent researcher who develops her work in Spain and
the United States.
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