Mapping Noise and Voices in the Tenderloin

​What would happen if you hung sound sensors above the street in the Tenderloin, and then mapped the noise levels over two and a half days?

You can see the pulsing decibel levels yourself, via the TenderNoise project, and then check out its sister site, TenderVoice, which allows you to browse geographically through interviews with Tenderloin service providers. 

Both projects were part of this weekend's City Centered Festival, an exploration of "locative media" and technology.
City Centered's events schedule continues this coming Saturday, with community workshops on topics like hands-on interviewing, community mapping, using mobile technologies, and "place-based digital storytelling." 

The accompanying exhibit at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, SENSEable Cities: Exploring Urban Futures, features urban experiments with digital technology from MIT's SENSEable City Lab.

TenderVoice offers an interactive way to listen to interviews with social service providers

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The exhibition and the online mapping projects are great way introductions to what's going on at the cutting-edge intersections of media, technology, and urban planning. It's also a way to see what kind of projects may emerge from San Francisco's much-hyped commitment to open data.

The SENSEable Cities exhibit runs through August 11.

Mapping noise pollution in the Tenderloin

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