“The Empty City” is an interactive sound installation in the form of a miniature city, in which buildings emit pre-recorded sounds, or memories of a city. The work aims to engage the viewer in a contemplative state of mind and create a shelter for those who wish to escape their everyday realities. Rebecca Adorno’s city becomes a space of reinterpretation of the self, a space in which a void is filled with sound.

For Adorno, sounds of the cities she lives in register as memories. Each sound can be a trigger towards metaphorical time travel.  By creating an interface that allows the spectator to experience the city through the ebb and flow of the sound and light – our own memories of the cities we inhabit will morph with the soundscape Adorno has created.

To have a constant velocity, an object must have a constant speed and motion in a constant direction. Constant direction typically constrains the object to motion in a straight path. 

Social innovation is the process of designing, developing and growing new ideas that work to meet pressing unmet needs. The term is a relatively new one, but there is a long history of social innovators and examples of social innovation – from kindergartens to hospices, arts as a communication tool, responsible cities and from the cooperative movement to crowdfunding.

Globally, social innovation is rapidly becoming established.  SIX is an example on working hard to connect, support, and inspire social innovation practitioners as they emerge.

“Getting around is still the city’s biggest hindrance to getting ahead.  If Montréal consistently ranks high on many quality-of-life listings it is little thanks to the people charged with running it.  While the city is justifiably lauded for it’s succesful incubator of high-tech and cultural industries, Montréal’s mass transit, roads and bridges are in sore need of an upgrade: the average commute in Montréal is 76 minutes.

Fortunately, convivial and cosmopolitan Montréalers still make up the difference. The city hardly lacks for intellectual and creative capital, or the urban stratagems necessary to make it the envy of North America.  The city has long been on the cusp of a rennaissance; all it needs is a cleaner, less bloated municipal government to help get it there.”

Source: Monocle’s The Liveable Cities Index 2011