City of Drones is an interactive digital environment developed by musician John Cale, speculative architect Liam Young and digital artists FIELD. Charting the story of a lost drone drifting through an abstract cityscape, players are invited to pilot a virtual craft and remotely explore this imaginary world.

Samples from Cale’s original soundscape compositions echo across the landscape as we see the city through the eyes of the drone, buzzing between the buildings, drifting endlessly, in an ambient audio visual choreography.

City of Drones lives online, and as an installation at the Barbican Center, London, as part of the Digital Revolution exhibition.

I was brought on to the project to develop the dynamic audio of the piece with the team at FIELD. This involved remixing original material from John Cale, including bespoke work from BXFTYS, and setting it all in a constantly changing, immersive 3D sonic landscape.

Spot sound effects are triggered by different locations within the environment, and the sounds of drones as they fly past are processed using the WebAudio HRTF panner to accurately position the sounds in 3D space.

The background music layer and ambience also change as you fly through the different areas. In addition, I also contributed to the physics of the drones, giving them some freedom of movement as they fly around the space, avoiding buildings and each other, plus I developed the on-screen HUD graphics and animation.

• Field.io : 🔗
• Liam Young : 🔗
• John Cale: 🔗
• BXFTYS: 🔗