Sound design

I spent a great deal of time last week trying to untie various kinds of html code in order to embed sound files in my blog posts. Blogger gives the option of embedding image and video into a post in the toolbar at the top of the window where it is composed, but no such handy icon appears for audio files. Instead, I've been up, down, and all around, starting accounts on multiple file-hosting sites only to discover that they won't load the mP3, or they only host audio files that have been recorded via phone onto the site, or or or or.

I find this conundrum very interesting. In terms of cities, sound is often viewed as an inevitable side effect, an inherent—and usually negative—consequence. Traditional urban planning and design practices have focused almost exclusively on visual design—even now, many of the design ideas we’ve come across in class have few hints towards what kind of auditory world might accompany their visual imaginings. Sound, it seems, is beyond the scope of much city design (visual metaphor intended)--although the Urban Sound Institute provides a recent example to the contrary.

If my experience with embedding sound files is any indication, the Internet is also designed to be a visual beast. Web pages contain visual content by their nature. But the status of online audio seems to be almost the opposite of urban soundscapes. The latter represent the often accidental consequences of processes that consider them secondarily if at all, whereas online sound represents the result of some careful programming and clear design intent. Granted, the case of videos may be an exception to this rule. The point remains, however, that sound must be designed into web pages to a far greater extent than it has been, so far, into cities.

A couple of questions spring to mind. Is it possible to conceive of an online environment in which sound would be accidental? What would that sound be—slick, mechanical, modern; the sound of chaos and billions of voices; something different altogether? And if sound were engineered more carefully in urban environments, would the effect be to sterilize them or to improve them?