Scott, JE

University of Salford Institutional Repository

Walking in the wild, smart city:  exploring geo-located sound walk practices in urban landscapes Jo Scott  300-word statement: Wilding the Smart City is a practice as research project which explores the capacity of creative digital practices to highlight and reveal elements of wildness in city landscapes, particularly nonhuman processes in smart city infrastructures and wild urban nature. The first phase of the inquiry, detailed here, has been pursued through the creation of two geo-located sound walks, which are also the outputs of the research.  The research is informed by theories of wildness, arising from philosophy, ecology, post-colonial and queer studies (Macfarlane 2007, Halberstam 2020, Tsing et. al 2020), as well as by ecological frameworks for nature in cities (Hinchcliffe and Whatmore 2010, Kowarik 2014, Flyn 2019) and critical technology studies, focused on smart city infrastructures and processes (Thrift 2014, Greenfield 2017, Mosco 2019). It sits in a lineage of urban walking and sound walks, such as those practised by Janet Cardiff and Graeme Miller.  The research questions are: • What capacities of geo-located sound walk practices can be mobilised to reveal and highlight qualities of wildness in urban environments? • How can geo-located sound walk practices be used to draw attention to these nonhuman and often less visible processes in city spaces? • How does engaging with these geo-located sound walk practices affect how participants experience familiar and unfamiliar urban spaces?  Its findings are that the private-public quality of a sound walk draws a participant into new relationships with urban spaces, offering opportunities to reflect on hidden wild processes. Location-based sound triggering allows a focus on specific spaces or objects, prompting a sense of revealing and discovery. Finally, creative strategies such as binaural recording and sung vocal refrains open up a more playful and interactive relationship with wild processes, prompting new ways of seeing, revealing hidden elements and raising awareness of complexities that are embedded in urban spaces.  Research Outputs: The outputs of this research – 2 geo-located sound walks – alongside the research narrative and associated documentation - are all available through this link, which is also present as a separate item in the Figshare collection: https://sway.office.com/oU3x0HvUi2PPmOpc?ref=Link    

Walking in the wild, smart city : exploring geo-located sound walk practices in urban landscapes : 300 word statement

https://salford-repository.worktribe.com/file/1327546/1/Walking%20in%20the%20wild%20smart%20city%20300%20word%20statement.pdf

Walking in the wild, smart city : exploring geo-located sound walk practices in urban landscapes : 300 word statement

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University of Salford Institutional Repository