What's that? Police sirens? The din of traffic? Random shouting? Must be the sounds of the city, the familiar yet alien noises that every city-dweller knows. A new art project from [Dominic Wilcox](http://dominicwilcox.com/) and [James Rutherford](https://twitter.com/jtruk) brings the sounds of a city, specifically Newcastle in the north of England, inside using a device called Binaudios.

Located at the Sage Gateshead, the Binaudios look like a giant pair of ear trumpets that listeners can point in different directions across the river Tyne to hear specific sounds. By doing so people can hear sounds related to various landmarks, a local market, street performers&#x2014;over 50 different places in total.

The inspiration for the look of the device came from those coin-operated tourist binoculars and it uses a hidden Raspberry Pi to connect the location to a sound, triggering the correct pre-recorded or historical sound to give the illusion that you're actually hearing the location. Wilcox explains more on [his website](http://dominicwilcox.com/portfolio/binaudios/):

_"As the Binaudios are turned each sound merges with the sound next to it, like a DJ soundscape of previously unconnected things. The train station sound fades into the sound of a street performer followed by road works then local primary school children singing._

_What&#x2019;s nice about this project is that we can drop these Binaudios onto any tall building or place with a view and collect new sounds."_

The piece, which you can check out below, was commissioned for [Thinking Digital Arts](http://www.thinkingdigital.co.uk/) 2014&#x2014;and you can find out more plus listen to a sample of the sounds on [Wilcox's site](http://dominicwilcox.com/portfolio/binaudios/).

Binaudios is a device that enables the user to ‘listen’ to the sounds of the city.

Thinking Digital Arts paired artist Dominic Wilcox and creative technologist James Rutherford together to collaborate on a new commission responding to the Thinking Digital Conference’s context in the music performance centre, Sage Gateshead, located in the cultural quayside quarter of NewcastleGateshead.

Taking tourist binoculars as inspiration, the Binaudios can be pointed at over 40 different locations, seen out of the Sage Gateshead windows. Turn the giant listening cones toward the football stadium to hear the crowd chanting or to the Tyne Bridge to hear King George V’s speech when he opened the bridge in 1928. Point it toward the park to listen to sounds such as skateboarders and local tennis players.

As the Binaudios are rotated the stereo sounds move from one ear to the other creating a real feeling of listening to the city across the river.

More info at http://dominicwilcox.com/portfolio/binaudios/

Binaudios: Sounds of a city

h/t [Design Boom](http://www.designboom.com/art/dominic-wilcox-binaudios-listen-sounds-of-the-city-05-28-2014/)

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Dominic Wilcox and James Rutherford Binaudios device creates a changing soundscape of the city.

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Listen To The Sounds Of A City With These Giant Listening Cones

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Listen To The Sounds Of A City With These Giant Listening Cones

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