Abstract

Soundmirror is a participatory digital arts project that explores the North East’s coastal environments through First World War sound mirrors, originally designed to detect approaching zeppelins. Using technologies such as photogrammetry, 3D animation, data sonification, and sound sensors, the project co-creates new ways of generating and interpreting environmental data. By framing sound mirrors as environmental sensors, the project examines how ‘listening’ to the contemporary coastal environment can activate the sound mirrors, merging technologies with shared histories.

Artist Rob Smith and curator Suzy O’Hara worked with coastal communities and local organisations in Sunderland, Seaham, Clavering, and Hartlepool, to foster deeper connections with the places we inhabit by amplifying dynamic maritime soundscapes. The interactive networked artwork emerged through delivery of a series of schools workshops and Coastal SoundLabs. The labs included workshops and events such as sound walks, 3D modelling, sharing local histories, and using technology to hear landscapes in new ways. Audiences record environmental sounds with their mobile devices, which is then animated through a 3D model of a sound mirror. Each sound file recorded is combined with other environmental sound data, creating unique movements and sounds each time the work was viewed. Through this collaboration, Soundmirror’s site extended beyond its physical locations, reflecting the changing soundscapes of the North East coast today.

Soundmirror’s Coastal SoundLab is accessible at: https://soundmirror.xyz/soundlab and https://colabsunderland.uk/seascapes-subprojects/sound-mirrors