Sounds of Living, Living Sounds: A Participatory Study of Domestic Sounds in Urban Japan

Sounds at home capture a complex assembly of everyday experiences. Composed of various physical characteristics processed by the human ear, they signify objects, gestures, and habits, subjective and collective. In recent years, the dispersion of intelligent objects and an accelerated digitalization of the home sphere are transforming home soundscapes, and novel interactive possibilities such as sonification and voice interfaces draw attention to the immense capacities of sound as a communicative medium. At the intersection of the natural, mechanical, and digitally synthesised, what is the present experience of sound at home? How can present home soundscapes inform their future design? In the presented exploratory research, humans living in urban Japan aged 25-82 filled a participatory ‘sound diary’, recording sounds of their domestic environments and documenting their experience of these sounds. A thematic analysis of the collected data illuminated domestic sounds’ situated qualities - their psychosocial significance, rhythmical nature, and sensory and interactive multimodalities. The initial results of this work in progress highlight the significance of a cross-disciplinary approach to sound design at home, consistent with the manifold holistic nature of the phenomenon. Such an approach may expose a path for collaboratively designing a future set of sounding artifacts resonating with present everyday experience.