THE WISPER

Visual Identity
#Sound #Audio-Visual #Beijing #City Identity
#EndangeredCulture
#City Identity

Multiple Owners
Designed and made by Ruoxi, Zimu, Yinyin
Year 2017

Exhibition 🏆
Exhibited at Beijing Design Week 2017 hosted by
Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China

Wisper is a project that collects endangered sounds from everyday life and the environment. It integrates these sounds into an interactive installation and creates an environment in which visitors can feel them both visually and aurally. The project includes ^I.visual identity of Beijing city , ^II. the endangered sounds, ^III.an acoustic and tactile playback device, and ^IV.related prints.

Part I.
Visual Identity

Part II.
The Endangered Sounds

Some sounds are unique to a city.

They are like poems without words and subtle rhythms which can awake people’s memories of the past. From the mild accent of the older generation, pigeon whistle to reading sound mixed with chirp, Beijing has many unique sounds that tell the story of the past, contain valuable information and highlight the elegance and charm of this city with long royal history.

Today, in the rich acoustic environment, these sounds are fading away. By the end of 2016, there were 21.72 million permanent residents in Beijing. This city, like magnet full of opportunities, is still attracting more and more people. Culture, trend and the whole society are all being pushed forward by the huge population.

Few people notice that the culture and blood of Beijing of the past 3,000 years has gradually dried up, and the sounds of YO-HEAVE-HO and Peking Opera may disappear unknowingly and eventually remain in the memory of old generation. Beijing may unfortunately become a huge machine without a real cultural core.

One of sounds' wave & frequency spectrum

We have collected these endangered sounds with professional equipment in Beijing’s six famous places both in the past and now as sound materials in the project, which are respectively Nanluoguxiang, Wang Fujing, The China World Trade Center, Sanlitun, Parkview Green and Xidan. The sounds are integrated in an audio-visual installation.

Collecting soil from six places for cement making

Making cement installation

Part III.
Acoustic and tactile playback device

They are like poems without words and subtle rhythms which can awake people’s memories of the past. From the mild accent of the older generation, pigeon whistle to reading sound mixed with chirp, Beijing has many unique sounds that tell the story of the past, contain valuable information and highlight the elegance and charm of this city with long royal history.

The audio-visual installment mainly consists of two parts -

The first part is the cement installation.

The second part is the aluminum foil tube.

The visitor listens to the sound from the tube, and looks up to see the video shot at elevation. Adopting unique perspectives, both parts guide visitors to look at the world anew and meanwhile to sexperience the preciousness of these sounds on the verge of disappearance in the contrast and collision between modern scenes and past sounds.
The aluminum foil tube transmits the long-distance sounds to the visitor, bringing the distant sounds of the past into the modern life.

At Beijing Design Week, people are experiencing ...