Portable Audio Design

The chapter presents a methodological approach to the early process of producing portable audio design. The chapter high lights audio walks and audio guides, but can also be of inspiration when working with graphical and video production for portable devices. The final products can be presented within online and physical institutional contexts. The approach focuses especially on the relationship to specific sites, and how an awareness of the relationship between the site and the production can be part of the design process. Such awareness entails several approaches: the necessity of paying attention to the specific genre; a grasping of the complex relationship between site and time, the actual and the virtual; and getting aquatint with the specific site’s soundscape by approaching it both intuitively and systematically. These steps will finally lead to an audio production that not only narrates the actual through the virtual, but also blurs the distinction.