In lesson 5.1 it has become clear that there are many kinds of audio that can be considered as narratives. In this lesson, we explore one such form, namely the locative audio narrative. Janet Cardiff’s sound walk, which we studied in more detail in the previous lesson, is one example because it is purposefully situated within a particular location and space. More often, though, such narratives are not only based in, but even responsive to the listener’s location.

Screen-based locative media. By iMAL.org, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. Click image to enlarge.

Locative audio narratives thus exploit the affordances of locative media to present audio narratives. You are likely using locative media on a regular basis yourself. Perhaps you use a GPS-directed map on your smartphone or a running tracker. But such locative media, as scholars have recently pointed out (Hemment 2006; Behrendt, 2012) are often screen-based and make little use of multi-modal affordances that technology offers. Paradoxically, conventional locative media thus require us to squint at a small screen, rather than attend to the physical world that they help us navigate.

In contrast, as we have seen in lesson 5.1, an auditory modality is often used to open up a secondary channel, but also lends itself well to provide spatial orientation, positioning and temporal development. Locative audio seeks to weave such features in highly situated and embodied forms of storytelling. This provides opportunities to involve the listener in the narrative in new ways. Rather than sitting back and hearing the world pass by, locative narratives invite the listener to actively traverse and explore a setting as part of the story-world that sound clips help to create around them.

In this lesson, we will:

• Explore a brief history of locating audio narratives in space and listen to concrete contemporary examples, to inform our understanding of what they could be;

• Conceptualize locative audio narratives in more analytic terms;

• Provide you with the necessary tools to analyze and develop your own location-based audio narrative.