Gokce Kinayoglu’s soundtrack brings together the bird’s-eye experience provided by a satellite map with an immersive and intimate feeling of a stereo sound recording. The technique that is employed involves outdoor sound recordings made on the move i.e. ‘soundwalks’, and a GPS track-log generated during the walk. Soundwalk recordings are synchronized with relative GPS-time series coordinates taken from the track-log. This makes it possible to present the soundwalks as ‘tracks’ on the map, letting the user explore and interact with the sounds of a place freely through the map interface.

soundtrack is created with the Google Maps API, Apple Quicktime API, and approximately 250 lines of Javascript code. The initial sound recordings and GPS tracklogs were made on a Sony MZ-RH910 recorder, and a Magellan Explorist 210 handheld GPS. The site is tested to work with the latest versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Gokce Kinayoglu is a Ph.D. Candidate in Architecture with Designated Emphasis in New Media at the University of California At Berkeley, and a member of World Forum of Acoustic Ecology.