SoundAffects [soundaffectsnyc.com] by Parsons The New School for Design turns everyday data, ranging from weather and traffic to color and motion, into musical sounds. The project is set up as a 10-day musical and visual exploration that aims to change the way people think about cities.

Various in-situ experiments are generating the open data, such as tracking whether pedestrians will pick up coins from the sidewalk, whether a balloon will alter the 'tone' of the city, whether backyard noise will change the perception of a busy street, or whether one can effectively picnic on a parking spot in the city. Accordingly, a collection of environmental sensors measures the according proximity, noise, weather, color, light, temperature and cell phone activity data, which in turn is piped through a compositional tool to create the musical sound.