User:Andre castro/thematic/1.2/notes-proposal

Blind Archive: A aural journey through an archive

An interpretation of texts through sound, according to the archive's knowledge on the text's terms

• technical development page

What

• How can we possible to explore archives in unusual ways?
• Does unusual experience of the archive change what this is, our perspective upon it?

• My proposal is to take the model of a blindfolded walk through a city and apply it to the online archive context.

• • When you walking blindfolded through a city, our common mode of navigation is disrupted as we stop relying on our eyes,( and start using what we hear, smell, feel underneath our feet). Under such conditions known places appear under a new light, we gain a new insight into them, our experience of them becomes richer.

• • Will a similar experience take place if we approach the archive in this fashion, focusing the archive's aural present?

(sound is not the guide, words are the guide)

How

How am I planing to organize this journey?

• I am planning to use texts as my guide.

By taking words different text sources( news feeds, cooking recipes, poetry, novels, tweet feeds, etc)and feeding them, one by one, to the archive's search engine, asking it for audio items tagged under that given term. From the search results one sound file (given it is not too long) is downloaded The result is a sound sequence relative to the a words sequence(text) - a translation of words into sounds, one sound per word

• The sounds-words sequences will be made public via a online radio.

This will not solely consist of an audio stream, but a place where users can find information on the sound-file being played (or previously played files), links to archive.org item's page, and the possibility to add comments and share the item with the online community

Why

• See a bit dormant, under-explored - (would it be great it it had the vitality of an archive like youtube??)
  • it is explored mostly through individual search and result's popularity;
  • find alternative way of navigating the archive
  • try to activate it, to make it place of artistic expression
  • be surprised: find unexpected materials; be able to find more information on them and share it.

• making a online-radio that takes advantage of its online context, employing hyperlinks and a social dimension.

Why archive.org

I decided to work with archive.org, since materials are published under CC, there's a great wealth of variety of sound materials and community aspect (users are the ones who upload most materials); its structure is also simple and logic with an api provided .