Special Projects

In this section, we list various exhibitions, festivals, special projects, and other activities that will be available for longer periods of time.

• Exhibition: La La Lab – The Mathematics of Music

An interactive exploration and discovery of music from a mathematical perspective, currently showing in Heidelberg. The website from IMAGINARY contains a large set of free / open source resources. [full description]

• World Health Organization — Make Listening Safe program

Under the theme “Make Listening Safe”, WHO draws attention to the rising problem of noise-induced hearing loss due to recreational exposure to loud sounds.

• App Arquitecturas de la memoria (Memory Architectures AR APP)

Recognizing sound as a source of intangible cultural heritage, this project proposes the creation of an augmented reality app by geolocation that links different audios on memory to specific places in the public space. The app configures an interactive cartography in which, through the smartphone, you can access geolocated audios that accompany the walk through the town. [full description]

• VOICES [FOR BIODIVERSITY]

An interactive artwork by Leonel Moura that broadcasts voices from the natural world in the face of the calamitous extinction of species caused by human action. The more people entering the room the more the environment will resemble a jungle disturbed by human presence. [full description]

• Prospettive Sonore [postponed]

A 15-day artistic residence for 6 Italian composers under 35, selected through a specific call for applications, and aims at the specific musical training of the participants and the creation, performance, recording and recording of new musical compositions. [full description]

• UK’s Interactive ‘Year of Sound’ Exhibition

Winchester Science Centre and Planetarium opens the UK’s largest hands-on interactive exhibition about sound, vibration and hearing. [full description]

• Villa Pennisi in Musica

The meeting place of Music and Architecture – A festival where everything sounds. [full description]

• Sound City (workshop)

This workshop proposes the discovery of the city, its material and immaterial heritage, through the disciplinary crossing between the practice of architecture (creation of models), the sound arts (soundscapes) and electronics. [full description]

• Global Program of Hush City Soundwalks for the International Year of Sound 2020

Starting on April 29 2020, for the celebration of the International Noise Awareness Day and continuing during the year, a number of Hush City Soundwalks will be guided by different soundwalk leaders in multiple locations worldwide. [full description]

• Hearing Care Platform measuring kiosk

A measuring kiosk is now accessible to all students at McGill University. Using their own listening devices and playlists, participants are asked to place their headphones on the artificial ears of a mannequin’s head. After a series of questions, listening levels are assessed on a tablet and personalized information on hearing care is provided to the participant. [full description]

• Hearing the Past : A virtual immersive audio concert for the ears Recreating Notre-Dame Cathedral’s 850th anniversary performance of « La Vierge »

In honour of the International Year of Sound and for the 1-year memorial of the Notre-Dame cathedral fire, a team of researchers and sound engineers has recreated a virtual reconstruction of a recent performance recording made in the cathedral. [full description]

• Concurso de grabación de sonidos: “Descubriendo los sonidos de la naturaleza desde mi casa”

An open contest for those who want to record and help build an archive of animal sounds and soundscapes in Costa Rica, using their cellphones from home. Audio files will be uploaded to the “Colección BioSonidos”, UNED. A series of recognitions will then be given to those participants who won in different categories. [full description]

• La Semaine du Son launches the First International Competition for Sound Architecture “2068, MAKE PLACE FOR SOUND!”

for students at universities and schools of architecture, urban planning, landscape, design, art, engineering, and students enrolled in courses for sound professions, acousticians, musicians, composers, engineers, designers, videographers, instrument makers … [full description]

• Paisajes Sonoros del Maestro Roncador

The book, published by the Spanish Acoustic Society and entitled “Paisajes Sonoros del Maestro Roncador” (Sound Landscapes of the Snoring Professor), is a fun story that, through different episodes of the professor’s life, explains the fundamental principles of acoustics and soundscapes. [full description]

• Helping the River Sing

The ‘helping the river sing’ project, will showcase the beauty of the famous Murray River, and help re-frame the discussion about the waterway’s health using sound. [full description]

• You can never start thinking about sound too early

There are great opportunities to utilise acoustics as a learning tool to raise student awareness of this aspect of the built environment. Two examples are discussed here in which acoustics has been used as a theme in school projects at primary and secondary school. [full description]

• #SONSQUEAMO: The sounds between hearts and minds

The ProAcústica Brazilian Association for Acoustic Quality launches #SonsQueAmo campaign as a form of expression and freedom in the face of the stillness and silence of the current times. [full description]

• Teaching music in deaf schools using vibration

A video by Acoustics Research Unit at the University of Liverpool on vibrotactile equipment to aid music education. [full description]

• Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra Virtual Play-In

During the first New Zealand lockdown in March-May, the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra invited musicians around New Zealand and the world to contribute to a virtual play in. [full description]

• On the sensational Helmholtz – Brazil

Year 2021 marks the Bicentennial of Hermann von Helmholtz, the founding father of music acoustics. The present project will produce an exhibition on “Helmholtz and Music Acoustics”, with the very rare XIXth century equipment belonging to the School of Music, … [full description]

• The Covid-19 Sound Map

The COVID-19 Sound Map is a crowd-sourced project where the public is invited to consider everyday aural environments which have changed as a result of restrictions put in place around the world during the various periods of lockdown following the COVID-19 outbreak… [full description]

• Soundscapes

The project was born in 2020, during the days of isolation of the first Covid-19 lock-down when we realized how the sound landscape around us had suddenly changed, overnight. This extraordinary event made us reflect and we thought it would be interesting to have a collectively reflect on the soundscape in which we are immersed and to which we do not pay much attention… [full description]

• 2020 Noise Awareness Day Public Opinion Poll – Noise Levels in the time of Covid-19

On Noise Awareness Day 2020 we started an online opinion poll about noise annoyance in the times of Covid-19’s first wave. The results are now published as open-source in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America… [full description]

• TeknoLoghia – Conversations on artistic expression and technology

How can the audio-video technologies become enabling factors of artistic expression? We will try to provide an answer by presenting the experience of four groups of researchers and artists among the most interesting of the Italian (and not only) scene… [full description]

• Sons del Delta del Llobregat

A small Citizen Science campaign to collect short videos and a questionnaire about noise annoyance in Delta del Llobregat, just next to El Prat Airport in Barcelona… [full description]

• Sons al Balcó

Citizen Science campaign to collect 30-sec video samples of the soundscape in Catalonia, one year after the lockdown. Please, fill the questionnaires – if you are in Catalonia!… [full description]

• Competition: How does Switzerland sound in 3D?

As part of the International Year of Sound 2020+ and on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the Swiss Acoustical Society SGA-SSA is looking for the most impressive binaural 3D sound recording…. [full description]

• IOA’s soundscape competition for secondary schools

This school competition is for a small team of students to produce a map of their local area, indicating the different sounds that can be heard at different places…. [full description]

• Voices from the Peak

Voices From The Peak is a series of immersive audio-artworks which take listeners on a journey through the UK’s first National Park – the Peak District… [full description]

• Extra-curricular Virtual Courses in Acoustics

The Peruvian Institute of Acoustics launches the first regional virtual course in acoustics, to link in different academic days; people interested in acoustics with teachers and researchers, and thus propagate the importance of sound in all aspects of life… [full description]

• Birdsong and Bells — the Peak Sound Project

A short film in which residents of four communities within the Peak District National Park record the sounds that surround them… [full description]