Cities and Memory - remixing the world

Inside the Klimahaus museum, which is dedicated to telling the stories of climate and the environment. The exhibition called "The Journey" takes you around the world on a line of longitude from Bremerhaven with interactive installations and exhibits that make extensive use of sound to be as immersive as possible. 

Here we are inside an artificial rainforest experience based on Cameroon, with rain, thunder and tropical birdsong. 

Recorded in May 2025 by Cities and Memory. 

"‘This is not a simulation?’ - raises the question what is real, am I dreaming, are we in an alternate reality?

"For the Cities and Memory Spring Project I found myself drawn to an audio recording made on the platform of the Gare Du Nord in Paris. Interestingly a key feature of the recording is some fake birdsong perhaps being piped over loudspeakers onto the platform whilst everyday passengers are milling about and passing through the station.

"I wondered what could be fake birdsong? I also thought about train travel and the mesmeric sounds made by a train passing along the tracks. Having recently been on a long journey to New Zealand and back I reflected on the fact that travel itself takes you outside of your normal frame of reference into another reality.

"Philip K. Dick wrote a series of short stories called, Electric Dreams a common thematic is the idea of losing one’s self in another reality. In ‘Exhibit Piece’ the main character finds himself confused having been transported back in time into an earlier reality, into what he thought was a museum exhibit, but he is now experiencing it as his own reality, but simultaneously his memories are from the present day and he tries to grapple with these two conflicting realities.

"The project requires that the original audio is used somewhere, somehow within the new track. There are no other rules other than a minimum / maximum length. You will hear some of the original audio, but I have also taken samples converted to midi as part of the process of creating the rest of the track. Other recorded bird sounds and a recording of a small bell responding to the wind build additional layers.

"This track is not harmonic or built around typical compositional ideas. It is instead a slightly surreal and a glitchy jarring rendering of sounds including percussive elements, are we perhaps hearing what a bird might be able to hear? There is hopefully an idea of going on a journey, departing, passing through some other space or time and then arriving perhaps changed. At some point was it not real? Is this real now or is it a simulation?"

Gare du Nord piped birdsong reimagined by Taylor Nuttall.

"How can humans stay human when we’re far away from our home planet? 

"How does it affect us when there are no familiar animals nearby?

"As the countdown begins, we take off, heading for the moon base. Once there, daily tasks turn routine and we begin to miss the sounds of Earth. But, the engineers of Bremen have hidden a control panel in the habitat with unexpected outcomes.

""Bremen to Moon" is inspired by the city of Bremen's traditions and innovations. It begins with a field recording of the Bremer Loch, an underground charitable donation box. Each donation activates a sound from "The Town Musicians of Bremen" fairy tale.

"Bremen is also home to Airbus, which helped build the European Service Module (ESM) for NASA’s Artemis program. The ESM provides power, oxygen, nitrogen, and water to the astronauts. These life systems are critical to space travel and the ultimate goal of building a permanent moon base."

Bremen's animal hole reimagined by Alexandra Pierschalla.

"The base recording was thick with sounds, but light on texture. In order to create some space to let that texture through, I took a sample of the whole piece, slowed and tuned it down a bit, and ran it through multiple granular synthesizers. This created a pulsing, almost breathing sound, around which I added some aleatorically generated rhythmic lines as a kind of frame or dramatic container."

Bremerhaven Klimahaus installation reimagined by Jerome Veith.

Recorded in the shallows of Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. 

The microphones sit low, really close to the hippos resting in the mud.
What defines this recording is mass. Around fifteen hippos, mostly stationary, but never still.

Their presence registers through pressure, slow exhalations, submerged movement, and low frequency vocalisations that travel through both air and water.

The surface carries subtle detail: displacement, ripples, contact. The sound is continuous but not dense, it breathes, expands, contracts.
Humidity affects everything. High frequency detail softens, and distant sounds fold into the background. Insects form a constant upper layer, almost static like, but alive.

There is no clear focal point. The recording holds a distributed weight, multiple bodies moving slowly, sharing space.

Recorded by Rafael Diogo.

The Golden Triangle - the point where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet - attracts many visitors. They can be heard in this soundscape along with crashing of the Mekong river. 

Recorded in Ban Sop Ruak, Thailand by Jake Edwards.

This was recorded inside The Blue Temple in Chiang Rai, Thailand. It is filled with people marvelling at the large Buddha and people singing. 

Recorded by Jake Edwards. 

This is Ao Nang night market, Thailand, where an announcement for Muay Thai can be heard along with musical instruments and the buzz of people.

Recorded by Jake Edwards. 

"Watching the World is a generative composition which was performed live and built from the recording which was processed through granular synthesis and other effects. The textures, harmonic material were inspired by the recording with a sense of movement and transition which I wanted to capture. 

"The piece used a system based on four-part harmony (SATB) to organise the arrangement of the granular layers allowing harmonic sequences to emerge. Apart from some of the drums and the sine wave synth, all sounds within the composition originate from the processed recording." 

Blue Temple, Chiang Rai reimagined by Neil Spencer Bruce.

"Some time in the future. Humanity has expanded beyond. You sit at the edge of the market, feeling the hum of the space station below you. It's late, only a few of your fellow travellers mill about, seeking out food, drink, company. Staring up, through the glass of the Starport, you see infinite, unthinkable galaxies. Everything feels too big and too small all at once. You are part of The Machine."

Ao Nang night market, Thailand reimagined by Goblin Market.