Intentional | Audio Identity Blog

Check out Warbike and Murmur, two newish sound-art projects that deserve attention because they bring experiential nuance to life — each in its own form adds new dimensionality to a world that’s normally right before our eyes.

The Warbike, for example, makes the w-fi networks around us audibly apparent: “Almost anywhere that you go in a city you’ll be sharing space with someone’s private wireless computer network…The Warbike turns this wireless network activity into sound. As you cycle the streets, you’ll hear the activity of this invisible communications layer that permeates our public spaces. Who knew that so much was going on?”

Teaser CBC Radio clip on the Warbike below. (Full interview @ CBC here.)

Meanwhile, Murmur applies the usually personal concept of “placemaking” to public spaces: “We install a [murmur] sign with a telephone number (in a public space, such as a bus stop or park) so that anyone can call with a mobile phone to listen to (someone else’s) story while standing in that exact spot, and engaging in the physical experience of being right where the story takes place. Some stories suggest that the listener walk around, following a certain path through a place, while others allow a person to wander with both their feet and their gaze.

Fascinating works, both applicable to brands — especially brands venturing into experiential marketing: these projects provide previously unseen tethers to other people and places, illustrating shared experiences where before there were none. And of course, we consumers human beings are fundamentally social at heart. We thrive on shared experiences.

In a commoditized world, it’s the brands that facilitate meaningful social ties like these that ultimately outlast brands that can’t (or don’t even bother to try). Warbike and Murmur show us two unique ways to leverage sound and make a shared experience come to life. What can you bake into your brand’s identity or customer experience that does the same?

– Noel Franus