IN-PERSON ISTANBUL HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

Heritage extends beyond the visual and tangible, it lives in the acoustic signatures of spaces and sonic narratives embedded within culturally significant sites. This paper explores how ambisonics audio can capture, preserve, and recontextualise intangible sonic heritage, creating new pathways for cultural transmission and urban memory. Drawing from “Macalla” (Irish for resonance/echo), a project involving spatial choral compositions, this research explores how spatial audio can document sonic environments for future generations. The methodology involves recording voices in controlled studio conditions, then playing back this source material into acoustically distinctive sites chosen for their resonant properties and cultural significance. Through ambisonic microphones, voices are re-recorded as they interact with different materials such as granite walls in Kilmainham Gaol, marble rotundas in Dublin City Hall, or ceramic tiles in former institutional sites. Building upon Barry Blesser’s “aural architecture” and Steven Feld’s “acoustemology,” this approach reveals how spaces function as acoustic archives where sonic memories become embedded in physical environments. The methodology is further informed by Jonathan Sterne’s analysis of how recording technologies reshape cultural memory and Salomé Voegelin’s phenomenology of listening, which emphasises the embodied nature of sonic encounter. The immersive documentation process reveals how sonic heritage is both preserved and transformed as materials age and communities put these spaces to new uses. This approach creates “embodied documents of sonic heritage” immersive records that preserve not just acoustic properties but spaces’ capacity to transform and be transformed by human expression. By making these sonic archives accessible through contemporary technology, the methodology provides scalable tools for urban heritage preservation applicable across diverse cultural contexts.