Project

TangiBel Soundscapes

Copyright

Email TangiBelSoundscapes@mit.edu for inquiries to use this image.

Mengying (Cathy) Fang 

Words are fleeting. Moments come and go, and what we vocalize “disappears into thin air."

In this project, TangiBel Soundscapes, we propose the vision for co-located people to collaboratively capture, collect, and interact with their words and vocalizations, therein adding additional dimensions to vocal expression and enabling the collaborative creation of artifacts that can be used to represent conversations. We believe that this would allow people to better express themselves, feel heard, and pay attention to the present moment. This can aid in a variety of scenarios, including collaborative brainstorming, storytelling, and more.

We aim to prototype an interactive system that enables people to capture recent sound bytes (e.g. spoken words and ephemeral sounds) and converts them into  interactive bits. These bits will be used as the basis to create  interactive visual artifacts that can be remixed and re-experienced, as well as  tangible and physical artifacts that can then serve as triggers to “re-inflate” previous virtual-scapes and allow people to re-experience their past conversations. 

This is a team project as part of the Snap Creative Challenge, focused on "The Future of Co-located Social AR." The theme of this year's challenge addresses the question "Can technology foster, rather than detract from, in-person socialization?"