Counter-Mapping with Sounds in the Practices of Postdigital Pedagogy

Abstract

The article analyses the methods of postdigital pedagogy based on critical media design (CMD), and collective practices which involve using sound recording and emission as a tool for counter-mapping the problems associated with the history and politics of digitally mediated urbanism. The article provides a detailed account of, and draws on materials from, the Emotional Urban Weather workshop conducted in 2014, in Warsaw, for an international group of professional young researchers, designers, artists and activists. The workshop took place in specially chosen districts of the Polish capital, in which the participants applied various sound design and critical media design strategies in order to address the historical, social, economic and political problems related to this place. Using technological tools capable of recording, emitting and measuring the parameters of sound, they prepared forms of sound intervention in the city. At the same time, this process became an experimental way of ‘opening up’ the problematics of a place by counter-mapping complex socio-cultural issues. Reflection on the workshop and its outcomes have contributed to the development of a postdigital pedagogy. The practices of critical media design (CDM), when combined with field recordings, affective listening and sound intervention, allow various technologies to be incorporated into theoretical critique and new forms of experimental engagement.