Abstract
Through Tower of Babel, a spatialized sound installation based on field recordings at the U.S.–Mexico border, we examine how sonic boundary objects translate bureaucratic infrastructures into embodied, perceptual encounters. The installation treats borders as culturally constructed virtual spaces rather than geometric lines, enabling movement across sonic channels and challenging fixed notions of data and identity. We argue that sound-driven artifacts can function as boundary objects in design contexts by mediating knowledge, exposing hierarchies, and fostering collective sense-making. These artifacts support cooperation across diverse stakeholders through sonic habitability: auditory conditions that reframe relations among human, technological, and environmental actors. While auditory perception enables shared recognition of structured and atmospheric information, the experiential knowledge of our sonic memory enables the same acoustic events to acquire different meanings depending on context and setting of the listener.
Keywords
sound-driven design, sonic boundary objects, embodied knowledge, sonic habitability, border infrastructures
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2336
Citation
Martin Rivero, P., and Offenhuber, D. (2026) Mediating Borders Through Sound: Sonic Boundary Objects in Infrastructural Listening, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2336
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Mediating Borders Through Sound: Sonic Boundary Objects in Infrastructural Listening
Through Tower of Babel, a spatialized sound installation based on field recordings at the U.S.–Mexico border, we examine how sonic boundary objects translate bureaucratic infrastructures into embodied, perceptual encounters. The installation treats borders as culturally constructed virtual spaces rather than geometric lines, enabling movement across sonic channels and challenging fixed notions of data and identity. We argue that sound-driven artifacts can function as boundary objects in design contexts by mediating knowledge, exposing hierarchies, and fostering collective sense-making. These artifacts support cooperation across diverse stakeholders through sonic habitability: auditory conditions that reframe relations among human, technological, and environmental actors. While auditory perception enables shared recognition of structured and atmospheric information, the experiential knowledge of our sonic memory enables the same acoustic events to acquire different meanings depending on context and setting of the listener.