We Are Here
generative, geo-tagged audio-visuals
We Are Here FM is an ongoing project by artists Betsey Biggs and August Black that navigates our conceptions of place through images and sounds that are geographically, but not necessarily chronologically or aesthetically, coordinated. Consisting of an ongoing stream of images and generative music in the web, the real-time audiovisual broadcast creates an ever-shifting hyperreal landscape of imaginary situations. Sometimes displayed as an on-site multi-channel installation, these experiences are at times magically experimental, at times hauntingly disturbing, and at times utterly mundane.
Currently using google maps for images and Freesound.org for audio, the audio-visual pairing comes from a random dart throw on the global map. If there are images and sounds in that area, we show them and include them in the ongoing broadcast. No place names or context are offered, and geographical locations are randomly chosen every five minutes. As such, the project immerses visitors - both sonically and visually - in a realistic yet artificially created landscape and they must locate themselves — physically, emotionally, socially and politically — within this space.
installation view at SMC, Graz, Austria 2025
As all listeners, on-site or online, experience the same sound and image at the same time, there is a synchronicity to the experience as well. All listeners and watchers are getting lost together, at the same time, but in different ways.
We hope you enjoy getting lost with us.
installation view at SMC, Graz, Austria 2025
installation view at Piksel 2022
installation view at Colorado University Museum 2023
installation view at Colorado University Museum 2023
Credits
concept: Betsey Biggs and August Black
software: August Black
graphics: August Black
audio composition: Betsey Biggs
Press
Blackflash Magazine article on We Are Here by Cléo Sallis-Parchet
Exhibitions
We Are Here FM - weeklong walk-in installation at the Sound and Music Computing, Graz, Austria - July 7-12, 2025
We Are Here FM - Boulder, Colorado, USA, 2023. Single-channel installation on-site at the CU Art Museum.
We Are Here FM - Piksel Festival - Bergen, Norway, 2022. Single-channel room-sized installation on-site.
We Are Here FM - Piksel Festival - Bergen, Norway, 2021. Screen-saver installed on computer screen on-site.
Related Publications
Biggs, E., Black, A. We Are Here FM The Digital Review, September 01, 2022.
DOI:10.7273/fxjt-f515
Project Website