Sound and the city: rethinking spatial epistemologies with urban sound maps

Urban sound maps are audio-visual representations of cities created by associating sounds and urban landmarks on a digital geographic map. Fusing cartography and audio recording, urban sound maps prompt a rethinking of how notions of places and spaces are being shaped, not just by maps but also by diverse sound technologies. Drawing from geography, sound, and media studies scholarship, this article explores how urban sound maps inform current discussions about digital place-making practices, as well as ongoing conversations about how maps offer “a way of thinking about the world.” Examining various sound mapping projects, it consists of a two-part analysis, integrating a phenomenology of user interface and “deep listening.” The first part pinpoints the assorted place-making practices associated with urban sound mapping involving initiators, recordists, map users, and media and their multi-layered politics. The second part delineates the techno-sensory interplay set in motion by the digital interface of the sound map and articulates its new listening-based cartography. The concluding section outlines the ways in which urban sound maps reiterate but also exceed previous models of spatiality prescribed by visual maps and other sound technologies, producing an unsettled model of subjectivity and rearranging established conceptual relationships between places, spaces, and users.