The Tactical Sound Garden [TSG] is a mobile media platform for cultivating virtual public “sound gardens” within contemporary cities. It draws on the culture of urban community gardening to posit a participatory environment for new spatial practices and social interactions.

Using a location-aware mobile phone, participants “plant” sounds (or “prune” those planted by others) within a positional audio environment. These plantings are mapped onto the coordinates of a physical location by a 3D audio engine common to gaming environments – overlaying a publicly constructed soundscape onto a specific urban space. Wearing headphones connected to the phone, participants drift though virtual sound gardens as they move throughout the city.

Project website: http://www.tacticalsoundgarden.net/

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CREDITS:

The Tactical Sound Garden Toolkit is a project by Mark Shepard in collaboration with Fiona Murphy (field recording, sound production), Brian Diesel (programming), Aaron Flynt (programming), Achint Thomas (programming), Viral Modi (programming), Ajeya Krishnamurthy (programming), and Sepand Ansari (programming).

The Tactical Sound Garden [TSG] Toolkit is funded in part by the New York State Council of the Arts and the departments of Architecture and Media Study at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York.