Urban Whispers
ICDC at Liverpool John Moore’s University supported the national Portrait of a Nation project; a national programme of creative, locally developed activities in 18 cities which form the Cultural Cities Network. Engaging young people in the Alt Valley area of Merseyside, participants were taught how to capture and edit audio, uploading it to the web in order to share their voices with the world. Conversations stemmed from what it is like to live in the city: at present, in the past and hopes for the future, celebrating their heritage and reinforcing a sense of local identity.
For some time we have wanted to explore methods that might allow us to deliver audio-only projects at the screen but with some form of simple visual accompaniment. This was realised for Urban Whispers by granting each podcast a floating speech bubble, each of which bobbed about the square overlaid upon a live video feed. As pedestrians bumped into the bubbles they swelled and grew, until sufficient movement - either by accident or deliberate selection - caused the bubble to expand and fill the screen.
The audio clip would then play out from the screen speakers but also be animated in the form of an graphic equaliser that took the form of a spatter-like paint effect, growing or shrinking in response to audio level and intonation. Local accents have proven especially popular in grabbing the attention of passers-by, while the enhancement served to add focus to the audio itself.