Borderline is an artistic research project that examines the relationship between urban sound and spatial, social and economic change in cities. Using machine learning, open data and critical geographies, the project will enable audiences to create personal, ‘playable’ drawings in public space by ‘listening’ to everyday experience.

In this workshop students will learn the fundamentals of critical mapmaking and data visualization using open data and walking-as-research. Join the artist on a soundwalk through urban data and learn to create personal maps of urban geographies using free online tools. “A soundwalk is any excursion whose main purpose is listening to the environment. It is exposing our ears to every sound around us no matter where we are.” (Hildegaard Westerkamp, 1974)

Jessica Thompson is a 2018 Digital Arts Fellow at AS220. She is a media artist working in sound, performance and mobile technologies. Her practice investigates the ways that sound reveals spatial and social conditions within cities, and how the creative use of urban data can generate new modes of citizen engagement. Her work has shown in exhibitions and festivals such as the International Symposium of Electronic Art (San Jose, Dubai, Vancouver), the Conflux Festival (New York), Thinking Metropolis (Copenhagen), (in)visible Cities (Winnipeg), Beyond/In Western New York (Buffalo), New Interfaces in Musical Expression (Oslo), Audible Edifices (Hong Kong), Artists’ Walks (New York) and Locus Sonus (Aix-en-Provence), as well as in publications such as Canadian Art, c Magazine, Acoustic Territories, and the Leonardo Music Journal. She has received grants from the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She is an Assistant Professor in Hybrid Practice at the University of Waterloo.

This project is supported in part with an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.