Sonic Psychogeography: reimagining urban experience by Jett Ilagan (Taiwan / Philippines)

Memory plays a crucial role in the context of migration as it provides continuity to the dislocations of individuals. Among the array of stimuli influencing the process of memory formation, sound emerges as an equally significant factor. For migrants, particularly those who have relocated to a new country or environment, sound triggers memories associated with their homeland, culture, or past experiences.

This presentation introduces a research-based project that explores how sonic psychogeography and memory can be translated into a virtual environment. Currently in development, sonic_{imprints}° (working title) constructs a speculative 3D space guided not by visual objectives or gameplay mechanics, but by sound — offering users an immersive drift through ambient textures, spatial audio cues, and migrant narratives embedded in the city.

sonic_{imprints}° engages with the lived sonic realities of Filipino migrant workers in Taipei, examining how sound operates as a carrier of memory, cultural presence, and spatial belonging. Drawing on field recordings and psychogeographic methods such as dérive, the project constructs an audio-centered world in which users navigate through zones of tension, nostalgia, and resonance. Unlike conventional game design that prioritizes visual feedback, this space invites a different kind of interaction: one where listening becomes the primary mode of engagement.

_{The work investigates how urban soundscapes can be recontextualized to foreground embodied and affective modes of exploration.}

_{The project positions virtual space not as a neutral digital canvas, but as an emotionally charged environment shaped by memory and movement.}

Conceptually, sonic_{imprints}° draws from theories of acoustic ecology, sonic agency, and migratory listening. The research also reflects on psychogeography as a method of mapping urban experience through affect and sound, rather than through visual or cartographic logic. Listening, here, becomes a way of sensing the city — one shaped by labor, distance, and cultural displacement.

Though still in its prototyping phase, the presentation will reflect on early findings, aesthetic strategies, and technical methods used in the process. It will also address how immersive audio and 3D environments can serve as tools for reimagining urban experience, particularly from marginalized or diasporic perspectives.

Jett Ilagan (b. 1991), a.k.a. escuri, is an interdisciplinary artist, and a cultural worker based in the Philippines and Taiwan. His body of works, which include installation, video art, and audio-visual performance, explore environmental sounds, particularly the idea of “cultural soundscapes,” through immersion-based methods such as psychogeography, sound walking, holding community workshops, and personal encounters with the subject environment and its locals.

Ilagan investigates spatial soundscapes, intending to encourage people to question and reflect on their relationship with the environment in this period, during which human activities have dominated rural & urban ecology and generative spaces. 

For the past years, he has exhibited, conducted art projects, and participated in artist residencies in the Philippines, USA, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and Taiwan.

Currently, he is enrolled at the Taipei National University of the Arts, where he is taking an International Masters Program in Studies of Arts and Creative Industries, focusing on Interdisciplinary Art (2024). He holds a Diploma in Digital Arts & Design (2010) and a Bachelor's Degree in Communication Major in Multimedia Arts (2014) at Mapua Malayan Colleges Laguna.