Triangulation Device

Triangulation Device is a participatory sound piece that generates improvised soundscapes using the movement of the body as a compositional device. The piece is performed simultaneously between two participants. Each participant is paired with a device, which transcodes its location to the other in real-time, generating sound through the body and creating atmospheric soundscapes that unfold and change in response to their movement and proximity.

The movement through space, especially the exploratory, uneven patterns of wandering, engages the body through a series of shifting spatial and social parameters. Unencumbered by the confines of location, participants are able to drift through cities in an almost tactile fashion, articulating social interactions through proxemic interaction, performative improvisation and play. By broadcasting sound into space through collaborative noisemaking, the project facilitates new and novel forms of sonic interaction that investigate how mobile technologies affect our understanding of place, home and territory.

Since the invention of the transistor radio, people have used mobile sound to create privacy within the public spaces of urban environments. Digital technologies, particularly location-aware mobile technologies such as smartphones, profoundly affect social interaction in public spaces by enabling us to filter, augment and construct our experience of the world around us --- transforming ‘space’ into ‘place’ by replacing face-to-face interaction with the sharing of content amongst friends, family, colleagues and contacts via online networks. As social networks facilitate more of our connections to the world, an increasing number of our everyday interactions are with ‘people like us’ --- those who we share common interests, backgrounds and affiliations. Moreover, while mobile technologies enable us to experience a sense of connection within urban environments, increasingly, those connections leave out the variety of events, the breadth of sensory experiences and the diversities of community that drew many of us to cities to begin with.

Sound, then, through its physicality, itinerancy and invasiveness, empowers us to ‘re-make place’ by un-silencing the social. By broadcasting sound through gestural interaction, the Triangulation Device disrupts social conventions by facilitating connection, interaction and collaboration with others, reconnecting people through spontaneity, chance and serendipity, and reclaiming urban space as a place for meaningful interaction with others.