Syren - A Ship Based Location-Aware Audio Experience

Abstract

Syren, a location-based, multi-speaker augmented audio reality installation was presented as a shipboard exhibit at the 12th International Symposium on Electronic Art in August 2004. It was conceived as a continuous 3-day spatial audio experience that augments the landscape through the Baltic archipelago with location-based audio media, spatialised through a 12channel speaker array. As the ship tracks between Helsinki, Mariehamn, Stockholm and Tallinn, listeners on the upper deck hear sounds that are perceived to originate from geographic features. Our custom GIS is derived from electronic nautical charting information that includes coastlines, buoys and beacons. A handheld GPS provides both position and direction data that was used by a software system to drive parameters of the spatial audio presentation. The sound production for the artwork was created using the custom application that enabled the artist to place sound media in relation to a real-world map. An important component to this software was the ability to audition the audio experience without ever taking the journey.

“That’s not a secure area”– physical-digital sound links in commercial locative games

“…However, many game-relevant elements (exploration, playful interaction, goaldirected interaction) can also be found in location-based sound installations (Rozier et al 2000;Goudeseune and Kaczmarski 2001;Rowland et al 2009;Reid et al 2005;Woo et al 2005;VazquezAlvarez et al 2010). Other projects have used locative sound for functions with imminent applicability in games, such as navigation (McGookin et al 2009;Holland et al 2002;Stahl 2007), or personalized mobile music experiences (Gaye and Holmquist 2004;Sawhney and Schmandt 1999).…”

“…using Bluetooth instead of GPS), placed sound remains an underlying idea in games such as Pirates! (Björk et al 2001) or Syren (Woo et al 2005). In addition to placed sound, various gestural game interfaces have appropriated elements of the sonified movement category.…”

“…Some areas and topics-particularly work seeking to establish an augmented reality environment (Cohen et al 2004;Kurczak et al 2011;Paterson et al 2010;Brock et al 2003;Mariette 2011;Albrecht et al 2011;Woo et al 2005) define context primarily as the properties of the physical environment (for example, nearby objects, background noise levels), additionally also incorporating sensor data about the user's orientation within the environment, such as head position or gaze direction. On the other hand, context may also extend to include considerations such as the social environment (Stahl 2007;Rozier et al 2000;Ekman et al 2005), ongoing task and temporality (Rowland et al 2009;Gaye and Holmquist 2004), and even physiological and psychological user state (Fagerlönn 2005).…”

“…Such complex balancing acts have been unnecessary in previous design, and demand significant adaptations both to design and evaluation processes (e.g. for a discussion on authoring tools, see Woo et al 2005). Another question concerns the transferability of design goals derived for sound in PC/console gaming into the mobile context, in particular the suitability of immersion-driven design paradigms for mobile contexts (Knowlton 2008;Ekman 2013).…”