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“Recorded Altitudes” is an attempt to capture experience of a city form an unusual perspective: hundreds of meters above the ground. The first of the series took place in Riga, May 2007. The images and sounds collected during this journey will be presented at the Urbanologic exhibition organized by LCCA in Andrejsala. The exhibition is open for public for the a whole month between 31/05/2007 and 01/07/2007. Take a look at the project’s online documentation and some photos of the process! Next of the project series will be carried out in the city of Rotterdam and elsewhere around the world. Stay tuned!

“Although urban environment produces a rich variety of noisy artifacts of different origins, the propagation of the sound on the horizontal plane is restricted by the shapes of architectural structures. The sounds mostly spread out through the grid structure of the streets and are never heard altogether, as in open field.

As there are no barriers on the vertical, “Recorded altitudes” attempts to elevate the listening position high above the street level. Eventually, there are no objects blocking the radiation of sound and sensitive microphones register the acoustic panorama of the city in its totality.

To capture the rare listening experience, unmanned meteorological balloons that are used to serve in atmospheric explorations are equipped with recorders and sent out to float over the city skyline.

After the journey, they return back to earth and expose the contents of their “black boxes”: recordings of sounds and images.”

Voldemars Johansons (2007)