Group Project — Paper Boat

Whatever Floats Your Boat

Have you ever imagined what it might look, sound, and feel like to experience the city as an inanimate object? What if streetscapes were peripheral and waterways more central? What if street noise could be drowned out by lapping waves? What if you could be floating on water instead of walking on land (or riding the subway)? Far from the ferry, but what if you were a paper boat floating through the Hudson or East River in New York City…

Dreamy, Right?

Ami and I drew inspiration from our encounters with rivers and created a virtual sound walk from the perspective of a paper boat. The walk follows the course of a paper boat buoying along a river, with an ear and an eye on the changing landscapes and cityscapes surrounding it.

The virtual sound walk begins miles away from New York City, up the Hudson River which flows from north to south, originating in the Adirondack Mountains and ending in New York Harbor. Did you know the Hudson River Estuary stretches across 315 miles? That would be a long virtual soundwalk. This is a condensed version (including about 6 minutes of audio, on loop).

The objects and sounds reflect the journey from north to south, moving through nature to the built environment – ranging from larger lakes and horses galloping in fields upstate to urban parks, playgrounds, and trains

How to Float (Instructions)

1. Click on embedded window below to start the sound walk!
2. Wear headphones, it will sound better!
3. Use your mouse or directional arrow keys to navigate the scene – look around! If you get sick of the water, check out the sky.
4. Explore the banks of the river. You will hear different sounds depending on your location. Do you notice how the sounds change as the paper boat transitions through the river? What objects do you notice around you? What do you want to interact with?
5. For those who are prone to sea sickness, try to avoid bumping into the driftwood logs (your paper boat will get stuck)! Also, don’t go chasing waterfalls (the scene loops once you reach “the end”)!
6. Enjoy the ride? Wish you could be a paper boat now? What did you think? Leave a comment!

All the process of brainstorming and sound recording is recorded in Ami's blog post. Please check it out!

Credits

The audio samples include a mix of collected and found sounds (from freesound.org) by Ami. The 3D objects were created in Unity (or downloaded from the Unity Asset Store) by Yona. Major thanks to Lucas Wozniak at ITP for all his help with Unity!

Reflections

I had so much fun working with Ami on this project. Both of us went to the different locations near water in Brooklyn to record the sounds and we spent almost two days on it. It was also challenging to express the transition from nature to the civilization in Unity and I learned a lot while trying to do that. If I had more time to work on this sound walk, I would add a few more things. Initially, Ami and I were planning to pass the message about how the human grows up and how it relates to the sound we hear. When you are a child you are more connected to the nature, the older you get the more "industrial" sounds come into your life.