Course: Final Bachelor Project - New Futures
Period: Q1+2 2025-2026
Coaching: Berry Eggen

The sonic map is an interactive sound installation designed for the exhibition Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes at Marres, House for Contemporary Culture in Maastricht, in collaboration with RAW Material Company from Dakar. The installation invites visitors, particularly students, to actively listen to, record, and contribute environmental soundscapes, forming a shared and evolving sonic archive.

This project positions listening as an active cultural act rather than a passive experience. Visitors engage with sound through a tangible interface: two physical pawns placed on a classification map. By combining metaphor-based categories such as shape, weight, and complexity, users generate layered, generative soundscapes drawn from a collective archive of uploaded recordings. Sounds continuously overlap and fade ensuring that no listening session is ever the same.

The installation extends beyond the physical space of the museum. Visitors can upload recordings via a web-based interface, allowing contributions from diverse environments and geographic contexts. Once uploaded, individual sounds lose their personal authorship and become part of a collective system, reflecting themes of migration, diaspora, and cultural transformation central to the exhibition.

Designed for long-term educational use, the sonic map emphasizes accessibility, robustness, and collaborative interaction. It translates abstract cultural themes into a tangible, sensory experience, using sound as a medium for reflection, exchange, and collective authorship.