Transition Soundings (image above, video below) by David Birchfield, David Lorig, Kelly Phillips and Assegid Kidané is an interactive public sound art sculpture located at a bus stop in Tempe, Arizona, America. The installations structure:

has the appearance of a large transit map with hubs and paths connecting locations across its surface. However, this stylize ‘map’ is actually a large network of sensors and speakers that trace paths in sound across the surface of the wall. As users move and gesture infront of the piece, a network of proximity sensors initiates sonic events that wash across the surface in a fashion that references ripples across the surface of water. Sound events propagate through the network in a way that mimics movement of traffic, ideas, currents, and connections in the networks of our lives.

Conceptually the work employs:

the idea of the transit network as a metaphorical and practical sonic force. Topographically, the visual arrangement of speaker placement simulates a transit map that moves from a dense urban arrangement on the left, toward a widely spaced arrangement on the right. As sound moves across the wall, we have modelled the notion that transit paths will evolve and perhaps grow more sluggish with use. Thus, sound travels differently through each node of the network over time. This use of the network as a musical and visual presence, is intended to more broadly reference to role of networks in our lives. Transit networks physically link our communities, but networks of social, intellectual, and cultural conncection span our world as well.

Originally seen at vvork.

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