a field is to play is a collaborative and interactive public installation dedicated to the relationship between the inhabitants of mazama, wa – a small community in the usa – and their sonic environment. through multimedia local interactions, enaction and emplacement, the project aimed to give expression to the many, individual and social mental representations of the local soundscape.

a physical, interactive installation, located in a field along a pedestrian path and responding to the direction and intensity of the wind, presented audio excerpts from individual interviews, utterances and sound formations associated by the interviewees with aural memories and mental maps of their territory. by emplacing and activating such mental representations, they were merged back into the environment they emerged from.

the artistic intervention was conceived as a localised process, acting through an engagement with the public. the soundscape and its mental representations were manipulated as relational media and as matters of concern.