The goals of geography and Digital Humanities overlap in the Cities & Memory project.
Geography is about studying places and how people connect with their environment. In Cities & Memory, this shows up through sounds that are linked to specific locations. The recordings capture all noises from city streets to nature and give us a sense of what it feels like to be in those places. This helps us see not only the physical environment but also how people experience and remember it.”
Digital humanities is about using digital tools to study and share culture. Cities and memories does this in a great way, using tools to record sounds and upload them. These sounds show so much about an area. Recordings from places like Greenland have people laying music and singing, but the recordings in Philadelphia has protests and sounds of city at night. It shows how these digital tools can help us experience areas culture, and remember them in ways other than just pictures. The approach is mostly qualitative, because it focuses on personal experiences, memory, and artistic interpretation rather than numerical data.
Cities & Memory combines these goals by mapping real field recordings to specific locations and allowing artists to remix them into “memory” sounds. This project uses technology to make geographic and cultural information interactive and accessible, letting people explore how spaces are experienced and remembered.