Ness: Displaced

A geospatial audio experience commissioned by Metis Arts for Orford Ness, a remote shingle spit on the Suffolk coast with a long history as a military testing ground. The brief was a site-specific audio walk: as visitors moved through the landscape, different audio tracks would trigger based on their GPS position.

The project was built from scratch in two weeks after a third-party platform failed mid-project. The PWA handles multi-channel audio with complex spatial trigger logic — different sounds, overlapping layers, context-sensitive transitions — all managed client-side with no server dependency once loaded.

After delivery, the work was extended into something more interesting: a location-independent version that replaces GPS coordinates with distance-based triggering. Rather than needing to stand on a specific stretch of shingle in Suffolk, you walk the equivalent distance anywhere in the world — a park, a street, a beach — and the piece plays as if you were there. The sounds of Orford Ness become available to anyone, anywhere, who’s willing to walk for them.