About the Digital Maker Collective: The Digital Maker Collective are a group of artists, designers, staff and students from the University of the Arts London (UAL) who explore emerging digital technologies in arts, education, society and the creative industries. They are supported by Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon Colleges of Art (CCW), UAL.

About 'The Sound of Plastic should be Louder' collaboration: We engaged the public in participative experimentation with sounding instruments made from discarded plastic containers and objects. Microphones were placed within or near plastic objects and the sounds made through improvisation were visualised through a sound emission analyzer and then back-projected onto a tracing paper screen.

Plastic has many different structures and properties and through using a microphone and headphones, participants listened to the sounds that they produced and developed these through improvisation.

Valuing plastics for their material qualities and reuse possibilities allows a culture of overproduction and easy disposability to be questioned. It was our intention to ‘sound off the issue’ to raise awareness of the necessity to rethink the current overproduction of plastic. Participative improvisation through amplifying and sonifying re-used objects developed throughout the week in a feedback loop of recycling.

Above right, Catherine, Imann and Chiara improvising with visually impaired participants.
Below, Imann making plastic instruments with participants.

Below, family activating of sound visualisations.

Below, activating sound visualisations with Nicola.

Below, Stephanie and Chiara's augmented reality project about people's water choices.