Phonambient is a project of documentation and artistic transformation of contemporary sonorous heritage. It intends to register and preserve in a digital database (www.phonambient.com) the sounds that characterize a certain city or region, including soundscapes, localized sounds, musical excerpts, phonetics, and phonology.
The file created is available free for consultation and in creative and scientific contexts, such as electroacoustic compositions, sound reconstruction or theoretical reflections, which will also be divulged in the digital database. Phonambient appears as an expansion of the Porto Sonoro project (www.portosonoro.pt), trying to broaden the base (mainly confined to the historic center of Porto) to several cities: Braga, Guarda, Tondela, Fundão, Castelo Branco, Loulé and Abu Dhabi. It is also intended to share knowledge and resources originating from Porto Sonoro in order to facilitate the creation of a more comprehensive and universal database.
The resources that can be shared include software already developed (POLISphone, URB, and Manobrador), capturing techniques for field recordings, electroacoustic composition techniques, computer platform (server and design) and some specialized equipment (in training actions). Briefly, Phonambient will have a fixed work team (Sonoscopia), which will travel to various regions of the country and abroad, presenting the work developed in the Porto region and sharing knowledge, experience, and technology.
This fixed team will work with local teams from each region during a laboratory period where an autonomous local work team will be created and will continue the projects initiated there. Phonambient will also have a final presentation in each region where the project is implemented. The presentation will cross the Sonoscopy work team with the local teams, containing theoretical demonstrations about the work process and artistic presentations on the form of concerts or sound installations.