The city as a musical interface

Sonic City, developed by a the Viktoria Institute and RE:form in Sweden, enables people to compose music in real time by walking through the city.

The system retrieves information about the environment and user action, and maps it to the audio processing of urban sounds, resulting in music heard through headphones.

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Wearing a sensor-equiped jacket, the person can create a personal soundscape co-produced by physical movement, local activity, and urban ambiance. Encounters, events, architecture, (mis)behaviours � all become means of interacting with or ‘playing the city’.