“Monochromatic Urban Patchwork: Map of Averaged Urban Ambience” presented by Choi and Lee
Symposium:
Session Title:
- Mixed (full papers)
Presentation Title:
- Monochromatic Urban Patchwork: Map of Averaged Urban Ambience
Presentation Subtheme:
- Speculative practices
Presenter(s):
Abstract:
Monochromatic Urban Patchwork (MUP) (2023) presents a novel fusion of cartography and multimedia, transforming street view videos into a map of urban ambience. We analyze diverse temporal moments across the city through video, distilling audiovisual elements into representative colors. The root mean square (RMS) values from audio tracks guide the extraction of significant chromatic instances creating a palette that reflects the city’s rhythm. These average RGB values, corresponding to times with peak RMS values, are geospatially mapped, representing the city in harmony with transient sound events and urban ambience. MUP embodies the real-time urban ambience, manifesting it in the mediums of imagery and video, encouraging the map reader to imagine urban narratives through the colored map. This practice of merging map-making with environmental sound analysis underscores the integration of multimedia into cartography. It effectively captures the identity of urban environments, arousing further curiosity about different districts by imagining the ambience through colors. MUP translates the nuances of the city, offering a condensed representation of spaces through the practice of cartography.
