I have long talked about the movie The Terminal

and maybe someone will seem that I had moved away

from the main topic of this blog that is the information architecture in audio contexts.

I hope that this was only a brief impression

because the intention was not so, and I’ll explain.

I took advantage of the movie “The Terminal” with three post

because my field of study and research

I want to focus on “not place” as a space of transformation.

Our perception of sound, physical space (and perhaps especially when we surf into Web), will always be an essential element of our being. The place of waiting and transit, which is the terminal of an airport or the mall or, like so many other places of transition, of alienation, today, have changed their function and functional use which make users . Add to say, to the use original and unpredictable, which make users.
I agree, in fact, fully what is proposed by Luca Rosati.

“Information architecture stands as possible glue between the various contexts of human-information”
What I hope and I wish for my follower is to have tools and points of view and different listening to better interpret what we are experiencing.
I am sure, for example, that the next time you pass by a terminal, you watch and listen space so different, you will have more awareness of yourself, of your transformation from tourist, worker, migrant to traveler/user. Before the security check you will have a purpose that you will reach, only and alone, exceeded the output of the next terminal. Meanwhile, travelers are all equal, everyone must follow the same rules, and no matter the reasons of your flight.

At least that’s what happens, and we live the time of the change. “Soon”, forecasts for 2024, the airport and the terminal will be more. There is already talk of “Aeroville”: the airport will be the place where your holiday begins. To do this you start talking about the introduction of iBeacon that identifies you, they recognize the needs requested by the user and will signal where to meet their own interests.

You understand, therefore, that the theme is central to the information architecture.

But let’s take this opportunity to specifically and tell you my personal sound experience at the airport. While writing the previous post, in fact, I had the need to transit from an Italian Terminal and re-live the experience for a few hours the place and the passenger. Obviously it was not the first time and it was not even the first time in the terminal.
I can guarantee that, in the Terminal, in general, there is very little attention to the sound information. Mediocrity that I feel bad enough as the information that is disseminated to the sound channels are very important information and mainly for emergencies and not for the ordinary.

Ordinary, in fact, a system that addresses quite easily the passenger to his destination: the counter check-in will be well educated on what directions start, the right size of a carry-on and what you can bring in the terminal . The information is clearly visible across the path with signs or videos constructed. If you have followed all the instructions correctly, ticket in your hand, you head to the designated gate and you will board ship.
This ordinary. But the emergency? A change of the gate, in a busy period of the year? A delay due to heavy rains or snowfalls exceptional? The last call of the flight for a family who has checked-in and do not show up at the gate? All this information is given by sound through speakers.
Too bad that in the terminal the technology used is not really up to date, or at least, the audible result is like a buzzer, which if it is new we can reconstruct what it said, but when it is old, it is really incomprehensible. Yet the sound technology, like speakers and microphones, has made great strides to cost more and more content.

I was able to register a notice, I propose you, which I did not understand anything but finding myself in front of the gate. Announcements or warnings of this kind should be avoided and / or definitely improved.
Who has “no thought” to the acoustic structure of the airport, he has not even thought about the sound environment in which the announcement would take place and nobody cares if the information arrives or not.
That is why today the architects think about the context and the context can not be put aside.
Else, perhaps less important, perhaps even secondary. Ground staff, as that of air, I guess it took a course even surface of microphones, since, by international convention, all use a robotic tone. It would have two minutes more to explain that you have to hold the microphone to a “right” distance from the mouth.

In my last flight, then flipping through the papers in the cab, I read that the focus for a better acoustics for the passenger is the center of attention of the airline. Effort that is to be appreciated, but the use of the telephone to give important information on rescue systems is found in many aircraft. Perhaps not the most recent, where an animation clearly explains what to do in an emergency, but in many aircraft the intercom still is king.

It ‘really so difficult? I do not think so. As in much broader contexts and chaotic, as railway stations, or in places much noisier, as the metropolitan city, the sound information arriving in a straightforward manner.

Can you rean in italian Esperienza audio in Terminal

Geographies of listening are the last cahpter. I conclude with this post inspiration that Luca Rosati give me. I want to thank him, about idea of emotional geographies.
Sometimes I ask me if the information architecture is closer at the geography, the human geography, than the architecture. Of course, we need to create links, strings of relationships between different disciplines that focus their study about  Man and his experience. I would like, from these pages, could build relations and new bridges.

I draw the following reflections from the book The City Cosmopolitan, Geographies of listening by Vincenzo Guarrasi published by PalumboEditore from Palermo . I advice to read it.

Before taking up the book you have to wipe out some prejudices about Geography. For Geography it means the discipline that study the Earth, the world understood as system and then discipline that deals with the representation of Man, places inhabited by it, of history, and even the economies.

INTRODUCTION
– The author, Vincenzo Guarrasi, starts from the economic crisis we are going through and that shakes the Culture and Society to discuss the contemporary cosmopolitan city and geographies of listening.

– Intensification of exchanges of data, information and intangibles matches the intensification of human movements. Phenomenon is sketchy, deleted, forgotten or accentuated depending on the political convenience of the moment.

– Prof. Guarrasi focuses on two fundamental institutions of Geography: the man who lives in a place and the space inhabited by man. At the end of these two elements studied by the Geography you find human being without places and places without human being.

EFFECTS OF MIGRATION ON THE SPACE
The phenomenon of migration of peoples is a phenomenon as old as prehistoric times. Phenomenon which, today, european people are witnesses, not always aware; more and more contemporary. Men who for different reasons, often related to the living conditions of extreme places of origin, they move to other places. These humans have, or rather had a place where they were born, grew up and where they lived a period of their lives establishing relationships of various kinds: the place inhabited by Man. This site is lost (in the case of a war destroyed) or abandoned for a place “other,” which is not theirs (in the sense of identity recognition). The condition of “being a migrant” transform this human being in a themself without place.

At the other extreme, there are no places itself, such as deserts, certainly, or how certain areas of our cities. No places is not a place without soul or atmosphere, No places are places that often cross, we know well, where we stop, but we do not live it, except in passing. Indeed, often, they were established precisely to support this move. Feature of these places is that within them there are no relations. It can be a stand or a suburban mall, a train station or an airport terminal. Guarrasi, taking up the definition of the philosopher and essayist German Peter Sloterdijk calls them “places without him.”

NOT PLACE
I knew them as the no-places, as defined by etno antropology Frenchman Marc Augé (which, in recent times, it has revised the definition which I will return. At the moment there is enough place without the definition of human relations) . To see an example of places not refer to the picture of my friend Antonino Carlino who photographed them in his hometown.

PLACES SOUND
The place was founded in the relationship between the man who inhabits the space and the space inhabited by man, to the end of this report if we have no place and no place though, the center is the place, in fact, or better yet, find places, places of contact where they develop interactions.

“These (the interactions) pass through the mediation of the VOICE, as defined by the philosopher J. L. Nancy proposes” a voice “you must understand what it sounds from a human voice without language, which arises from a throat animal or a tool such as it is, even the wind in the trees – which we tend to buzz or pay attention, [(Nancy 2004, 34-35) Guarrasi 2011, 50-56]

“The sound has not hidden faces […] in the case of sound, something of the theoretical framework and intentional set on optics falters. Listen means to enter the spatiality from which, at the same time are penetrated, because it opens up in me as much as around me, and from me as much as to me. And that is such a double quadruple or sextuple opening a “self” can take place. (Nancy, 23).

The human being becomes a place in the interaction between his voice heard and his voice heard, both on the outskirts of a Rom camp, and in the voice of an Indian woman who acts as a domestic worker for a family member or caregiver our Ethiopian our grandmother .

The human being, therefore, the subject is the place of resonance. Guarrasi enlightens us with this phrase

“The landscape is related to the vision, the place is bound to listen.”

The place is, in short, interaction is contact between people, this interaction is not physical but is through the voice (often not included) and therefore only sound.

Guarrasi still remembers what was written by J.L.Nancy:

“Time sound takes place immediately according to a totally other […] This sound is immediately happen in a space-time, is spreading in space or rather opened his own space, the spacing of their resonance, their own expansion of its glare. “

Guarrasi then refers to the relationship between “space – time sound”.

And here I associate myself with what has been written and reported by Luca Rosati and where I find the link between the information architecture and sound contexts. Rosati writes:

– Space and time as dimensions of experience: the web works as a bond between territory (space) and emotional, experiential narrative (time). Which I am reminded of these words Enrico Beltramini: we are approaching a form of capitalism in which the product is immaterial represented by ‘access to the time and the mind […]. In general, the business migrates […] from the sale of goods and services the marketing of entire areas of human experience (Enrico Beltramini).

Rosati “truncate” the phrase talking about space-time . Of course just because outside of his research. And, instead, it would, in the light of the foregoing reasoning, report time – space sound (the narrative even before that written is audible).

Guarrasi still reminiscent of the words of J.L. Nancy:

“In the relationship between space and time sound subjectivity can be made and placed on the” edge of the way. ” Aware that in the sound, the sound source, there is also a reception, a resonance and a listen and then a report creator.

“The place sound, space and place – and take place – as it sounds, is thus not a place where a person would come to be heard, as in a concert hall but a place that on the contrary becomes a subject to the extent that the sound resonates. “

Here Nancy is an outstanding example and exciting comparing this place to the first sound shrill cry of the newborn child. A cry that is in itself and in itself; a cry, that beyond the space in which it is issued, it is the same place, and says: I exist! I am!

“Body and soul of someONE new, singular.”

Guarrasi adds:

“If the figure and idea have similarities between them, sense and sound have in common space of a postponement.”

Voice and dialogue, sound and listening, are the place.

And then, finally, it’s just putting to listening, activating listening and then paying attention to musical contexts, polyphonic, we can fully understand what is happening and represent it to the fullest. Both within a map, both within the web or within ecosystems experienced by human beings.

I am convinced, with humilty, that what has been collected to strengthen even further the claims of Luca Rosati in his post Information architecture and web 3.0 which reads

“Information architecture stands as possible glue between the various contexts of human-information”.

Among these contexts we find that sound context, indissoluble context related to our experience, our physicality, but also incredibly tied to our intimacy, our being whose being is in its being.

The post about emotional geographies of Luca Rosati inspired me more reflectiones and it opened interesting avenues of research useful to this blog. I hope to develop them even professionally.

I remember the first post of this series: Geographies and emotional geographies of listening 1/3

In this “second episode” I add two other considerations they seem me interesting.

Luca Rosati, in his post, indicates the projects that have

“The goal of returning an emotional reading of the city itself”

the project Rome seen by the blind. Write stories in geography, for experiential map of the city.

When I read this title, I immediately remember me a lesson of my teacher prof. Guarrasi that, during his lecture, he gave us the task to draw a map. That is the route map that we each one walked each day to get from home to our University. He asked and advised us to use all our senses, that is not only the visual / decorative, it was the most obvious, but also the sense of smell, if we wanted to, and / or auditory. To illustrate what he meant, he told us of a phone call with a his friend who was blind who, in giving information about the location where they had appointment, the recently specified that, in that area, had been remade the road surface. The asphalt laid in the days before, in fact, produced a different sound than the asphalt used. This evidently produced and produces, in a blind, different feelings and thus different representations with respect to the vision of a single path.

For this reason I take pleasure with the post of Rosati and the bond that I found in the Information architecture and geography it seems more than obvious. Your representations to which way bind? If you were to draw the path you do from your home to work what thing draw? Try drawing your map, I guarantee you will be amazed at yourself for the lack or excessive detail of the map. If you want and if you give me permission, send me your map, I will publish it along with my Blog.

Who wants a hand to understand how you create a map refer to the post “A short guide to map user experience: what they are, what they do, how to do it” by Maria Cristina Lavazza, information architect and user experience design in love with participatory planning and of collaborative methods.

The second point is that, most of what is believed, one resorts to the ball auditory / sound to describe and reconstruct spaces. As stated on the site urbanexperience, to rebuild the city we make use of two instruments: the radio-walkshow and geoblog.

“The radio-walkshow well understood because they represent a response social and cultural inertia of television talk shows, are in fact opportunities for citizen participation rooted in areas which have always known and that, with our walking-nomadic conversations, can rediscover with another look. The radio transmission (with the system whisper used every day by tourists who flock to our city) can create situations surprising involvement, inviting people to talk that they would never dream of speaking in public. It uses technology ordinary in an extraordinary way, by creating situations of radio performance (with the help of smartphones through which to ‘listen’ repertoires sound relevant, with particular ideas and poetic narrative) fueled by the actions of local knowledge and performer. ”

And finally

“The geoblog allows you to display the paths that take place in the city, drawing a map experiential, and at the same time, welcoming comments and sharing on social media and the web platform www.urbanexperience.it”

In the next post I conclude the course (certainly not definitive) about emotional geographies. A path that is just the beginning of new research.

Some weeks ago, Luca Rosati published a short post “Emotional Geographies” that inspired me several reflections that I will explain in this and next post.  It take my attention becouse often I found and rediscovered a bond between architectures and geographies.

Studying information architecture I remember the concepts of Geography that I studied at the university, specially the whole part of the representation of human systems. I’ll write again about Rosati’s post and about Geography also because, during my research, with great surprise I discovered that Prof. Vincenzo Guarrasi, geographer at the University of Palermo, he was my teacher (exam passed with 26/30) has launched a series on the cosmopolitan city that is subtitled “Geographies of listening.”

Returning to the emotional geographies of Luca Rosati, itself inspired by another post Anna Volpicelli Rosati introduced the topic with this brief summary:

“Designing experiences correlating space and time: the economy and the contemporary designs are configured more like a remake of this size – a space-time where the network serves as a connector and enabler.”

Rosati writes: “An emotional map of the city: everywhere emotion, a memory, a color. I often imagined a scenario like this. Something very similar now find myself in some projects.

Mapping emotions in Victorian London is an interactive map of London built by binding to places in the city famous literary passages (the Victorian), with the goal of returning an emotional reading of the city itself. I discovered this initiative thanks to the article by Anna Volpicelli The emotional map (interactive) in London. ”

Refer you to the full on the website of Luca Rosati.

Rosati closes the post with a final movie: the scene Islands chapter of the film “Caro diario” by Nanni Moretti, in which the two protagonists leave the island of Stromboli greeted by the Mayor, a visionary man.

I think, perhaps, unconsciously, recalling emotions, Rosati back at his acoustic memory to reconstruct landscapes, to create links between space and time. It does certainly the Mayor “Moretti” which, in the hope of a rebirth of the island of Stromboli than other islands more attractive, think to ask to Ennio Morricone of writing a soundtrack for the island.

For light, the mayor thinks to Vittorio Storaro, Oscar for fotografy, who takes care of the lighting of Stromboli and its sunsets.

The Mayor speaks of light and sounds, music, as a whole to rebuild something different, again. I would add: to rebuild a different context.

Paraphrasing Rosati “Designing experiences correlating space and sounds: the economy and the contemporary designs are configured more like a remake of this size – a space-time (sound) where the network, through sound, music or sound context, It acts as the enabler and the connector. ”

The Mayor continues “Rebuilding from scratch Stromboli, Italy rebuild from scratch. A new way of life, with a new light, with new clothes, new sounds, a new way of speaking, new colors, new flavors, new everything! Scion Scion! … “