Recycling traffic noise: transforming sonic automobilities for revalue and well being

Abstract

In this article, we advance a design anthropological approach to the ‘problem’ of urban traffic noise, through noise transformation. Drawing on an interdisciplinary collaboration between design anthropology and sound art and design, we discuss how noise transformation opens up new possibilities for the generation of wellbeing. To undertake this we interrogate the human-technology-environment configurations, improvisatory character, materiality and temporality of traffic noise and transformed sound. We argue that conceptualising noise transformation as a form of revaluing which remains open to the possibilities of human perception, offers a viable theoretical framing and practical strategy. It moreover, we suggest, offers a way forward in the face of the perennial problem of traffic noise, which has no viable technological solution.