The introduction of various collaborative tools, made possible by the expansion of computer network systems and communications technology, has led to new methods of musical composition and improvisation. The author describes a number of recent music and sound art projects involving the use of network systems that enable geographically displaced creators to collaboratively generate shared soundscapes. Various system designs, ideas and concepts associated with this interaction paradigm are presented and classified by the author.

In this paper we describe "The Public Sound Objects" project and its context. This project, which is currently under development, approaches Internet collaborative music performance, going beyond most common paradigms where the network is mainly used as a channel to provide a connection between performative spaces. The system will provide an on-line public performance space where people can be found participating in an ongoing collaborative sonic event. The users connected to this installation control a server side synthesis engine through a web-based interface. The resulting "Sound Objects" form a sonic piece that is then streamed back to each user. The user takes the role of a performer and his contribution has a direct and unique influence on the overall resulting soundscape. This ongoing event is also played back at the installation for a live audience, with added contextual elements such as sound spacialization and metaphorical visual representations of current participants.

URB is a research project designed to collect and store raw data from soundscapes analysis. This paper presents a survey about using URB based on the analysis of work developed by several artists, focusing on the description of their creative process and outcome. By comparing the processes and statements of each artists, the authors identified diverse systematic approaches to reinterpreting raw data provided by urban soundscapes, raising questions about the artistic outcomes vs original sound sources. Furthermore, some considerations are inferred about the artistic relevance of using this process in the creation process.

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The Public Sound Objects (PSOs) project consists of the development of a networked musical system, which is an experimental framework to implement and test new concepts for online music communication. The PSOs project approaches the idea of collaborative musical performances over the Internet by aiming to go beyond the concept of using computer networks as a channel to connect performing spaces. This is achieved by exploring the internet's shared nature in order to provide a public musical space where anonymous users can meet and be found performing in collective sonic art pieces.The system itself is an interface-decoupled musical instrument, in which a remote user interface and a sound processing engine reside with different hosts in an extreme scenario where a user can access the synthesizer from any place in the world using the World Wide Web. Specific software features were implemented in order to reduce the disruptive effects of network latency, such as dynamic adaptation of the musical tempo to communication latency measured in real time and consistent sound panning with the object's behaviour at the graphical user interface.