Podcast people to launch Hackney Hear phone app

The producers behind the award-winning Hackney Podcast are to launch a location-specific smartphone app featuring sounds from across Hackney.

The Hackney Hear app will trigger audio relevant to the listener’s location as they travel around the borough. Francesca Panetta, head of audio at the Guardian and the woman behind the Hackney Podcast, aims to launch the new app in January 2012.

Panetta told the Citizen: “It will be a mixture of features, interviews, music, poetry, archive and user-generated content provided by the community.”

“As you walk around the borough there will be this wonderful, immersive soundscape. It will sound rich and it will be beautifully crafted. But we also want people to be involved. We want people’s own sounds and stories and to use our skills as producers to really bring them to life.”

The project, which Panetta believes is the first of its kind, aims to provide artistic interpretations, historical insight and introductions to the various communities of the borough.

Panetta said, “In Hackney there are more than 100 different languages spoken, but often these communities don’t engage. Here you’ll be able to sonically hear them side by side.”

“Hackney in 2012 is an ideal time and place to launch a project like this,” said Panetta. “We have the highest density of artists in the country, it’s an extremely diverse area with many different communities. It’s a rich borough when it comes to sound and stories. And as an Olympic borough it’s getting a lot of attention at moment.”

The phone app will be free for users, so the Hackney Hear team are currently trying to raise funds. They are looking for individuals or local businesses to support them either financially or by contributing to the project.

Hackney Hear will launch at a party at Red Gallery on the 18 March with performances by Hackney poets Michael Rosen and Shane Solanki, sound artist Word the Cat, and musicians –  Paper Dollhouse and Earl Zinger.

If you want to get involved, think you can help or just want to learn more visit the Hackney Hear website or email mail@hackneyhear.com.