7 Transitions

7 Transitions is a location-aware, public sound installation for train cars on the 7 line through Queens. The project reflects on the dynamics of nomadism, the character of urban neighborhoods, and the influence of proximity on one’s identity. 7 Transitions incorporates a GPS module, the coordinates of which are passed through a microcontroller into a graphical programming environment on a laptop computer. The program is made to trigger sound according to what neighborhood the train is passing through—a sonic demarcation of civic boundaries that seeks not so much to represent the diverse neighborhoods of Queens as to highlight the transitions between them. For this iteration, I’ve employed a USB speaker to project chords of pure tones into the public space of a train car.