City Portrait is an interactive installation representing an abstract translation of the skyline of the city of Maastricht into sound.

 

Portraits are illustrations of basic characteristics of the represented, and this one consists of two parts. First, one is presented with the architectural face of the city which was translated into sound by a computer program that associated the highest points of the houses into musical notes. So, the higher the building or church, the higher the notes of the melody. Then in a second instance, the spectator influences the melody according to his position in the room. By those means, the visitor plays the role of the inhabitant who is moving around in the city and putting it to life.

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Maastricht is vibrating town where development and conservation are in constant dispute. The piece seeks to highlight the tensions between its multiple facets placing the citizen in the forefront of this portrait