Web-noise of Riversssounds

Services

Brand, Website

Industry

Art & Culture

Awards

Webby Awards

Red Dot Design Award

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Design and development of an interactive web platform for an art residence, focusing on natural soundscapes.

Riversssounds is an online residency for sound artists. It was created by the cultural organization DZESTRA (Ukraine), SEMI SILENT (Romania), and Ukrainian sound artist Anna Khvyl. The initiative’s mission was to document the sound of rivers and remind us of nature and its beauty that often passes us by in the digital age.

Our mission as design partners was to create an identity for use in different contexts and a web platform with an original way to present the output of the residency — field recordings from various European rivers.

We were with the project team before the start of the residency when applications for participation were collected. This presence gave us a better understanding of the subtleties and the approach that the project needed. The platform’s focus on the listening experience concentrated our efforts on the search for a solution with interactive mechanics. The project required a web platform and a visual style.

It was not enough to listen to soundworks. Soundcloud can do it. We wanted to give a “virtual travel” experience and let people feel themselves next to the rivers. We created interactive mechanics that allow you to listen to and influence the soundscapes.

Artists were asked to make recordings of rivers in locations near them. The site contains recordings of the Dniester, Danube, Main, Nyvka, and other rivers. Each river has a separate profile — a page with unique configurations and soundscapes. Moving the cursor through the grid on the river profile page makes you hear different proportions of the recordings. You can move away from the river and walk in the field to hear insects. You can also walk along the coast and hear the flow and rustling of plants. A person creates their mix, using residence recordings and built-in effects.

Understanding the spirit and mission of the project made us express “sound” and “fluidity” in a visual style. Neutrality and minimalism create an association with nature and help bring up the main thing on the platform — relaxed interactivity and listening experience.

We created two logos that complement each other. A common feature of both was “distortion”, reminiscent of a river and sound waves, referencing the idea of the project.

The small logo has three curved letters, S, on the water surface.

It was scaled to a large logo but with less distortion.

The project took place against the backdrop of the COVID-19 crisis when offline events were banned, but the demand for cultural events remained. The platform’s “virtual journey” concept was a way to compensate for the lack of new experiences.

Despite the imperfection of technologies for working with sound on the web, we created a new interaction between art and the audience. It proved once again that crises are a stimulus for progress, and people need art to feel alive. Riversssounds demonstrates how cultural projects can evolve digitally. We were delighted to participate in such a global project, which brought our team the Red Dot in the Web Special, Interactive Platform category.