IN THE BUBBLE JOHN THACKARA - witz cultural

176 Chapter 8
designed a new set of sounds, based on the notion of a wind chime, to improve
communication effectiveness by using a wider variety of easily distinguished
signals and to improve listenability through the use of an
expanded sound palette and deliberate composition. A variety of timbres,
pitches, and rhythms are used to create a soundscape that is harmonic,
varied, and textured. 47
‘‘Our cities talk to us,’’ says the typographer Paul Elliman. They speak
from the walls and ceilings of buildings, from elevator cars, supermarket
checkouts, and subway trains. Objects and spaces offer directional advice,
even warnings. These exchanges may not amount to a full dialog, but
through a range of technology, involving recordings as well as complex
language-modeling programs, our movement is guided increasingly by the
voices of audio signage. These spoken forms of way finding occupy their
own place in the city, which Elliman calls an ‘‘acousmatic space.’’ 48 The
term, which comes from Michel Chion’s film theory, describes characters
that speak but remain concealed. New York subway car announcements
feature presenters from Bloomberg radio, the station owned by the
mayor, Michael Bloomberg—making Bloomberg one of Chion’s concealed
speakers.
Airports and railway stations were the first places to adopt talking signs.
Since the 1970s, ‘‘Mind the Gap!’’ warnings on London’s underground
have been a sonic landmark for anyone visiting the city. In Amsterdam, a
row ensued when a soap actor’s voice was used to announce stations on
the city’s metro. On the Madrid subway, the recorded voices of two opera
singers perform a short duet just before each station. The male singer opens
with ‘‘Próxima estación’’ and is closely followed by the female singer, who
identifies the stop: ‘‘Plaza de Castilla.’’ In Shanghai, a friendly female voice
follows you from train to platform, to ticket hall, to street, pointing out
safety features and directions, suggesting bars, restaurants, and department
stores. Voice, once thought of as uniquely human, is ‘‘a new benchmark
in our relationship with technology,’’ says Elliman—talking and walking
us though the spaces of the city. 49
In his book Audio-Vision, the film theorist Michel Chion proposes that
one kind of sensual perception influences another and transforms it.
People have a natural urge to fuse sounds and images, in particular, as a
strategy for making sense of the world. We never see the same thing when
we also hear; we don’t hear the same thing when we see it as well. Chion’s