A Living River is a world-first responsive sound installation, bringing to life the people and places of the Yangtze at London’s Gatwick Airport comprising over 1km of speakers, 80 in each direction.
The installation celebrates HSBC and WWF’s work along the Yangtze, taking people on a journey, before their journey.
Travellers experience real sounds from the 6,300km river, with 100 hours of multi-channel audio captured from 35 locations. The layout of the microphone array was directly related to the layout of the speakers, so the real environments are superimposed in incredible detail and realism into the airport.
The experience is controlled by a bespoke system and algorithm; it adapts to the time of the day, the movements and density of travellers and the weather on the Yangtze using a real time data feed.