Location-Aware Album by Bluebrain

The National Mall by BLUEBRAIN. The First Location-Aware Album from BLUEBRAIN on Vimeo.

This is a trailer for the "location aware" album by Bluebrain, The National Mall, based on Washington, D.C. As the Pitchfork article that brought my attention to it describes, it's like bringing the soundscape of a video game to real-life. The project appeals to me because I am from Washington, D.C. and have walked around the National Mall to my own mixtape many times. In general, though, I like to coordinate my listening to place, thinking about good road trip mixes for different destinations and the best arrival music to various locations (thanks to the Jim Jarmusch film, Down By Law, New Orleans will always be Tom Wait's Rain Dogs for me).

Here is how Ryan Holladay of Bluebrain describes the project:

We thought, “What if you replace that map within the videogame terrain with the coordinates of an actual map?” In this case, the National Mall. And instead of assigning sounds, like you would in a videogame, to mimic real life, what if you made it musical, or surreal? For instance, as you start at the base of that hill [at the Washington Monument] you hear a single cello and piano. And as you make your way up to the top, more and more instruments keep getting added, to the point where you’re literally at the very top, touching the Monument, and you’re hearing out-of-control blast beats.

Though I have not downloaded the iPhone app and taken the music tour created by the band, one thing I notice and like about the trailer above is that the sense of place is not simply monumental, visiting the major landmarks in the most straight-forward way possible as a tourist would. The approach seems glancing, as with the avatar's experience at the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. Sharing this quirky perspective on place seems like a major contribution to the democratic mapping of Washington, D.C. In a sense, it nurtures the kind of perspective Noah gives us in his post, "The Capitol Who Watches Over All," which opposes the singular conception of the city from the pov of the Capitol.

(All images are screen captures from "The National Mall" video trailer by Bluebrain.)