Slide #1

Let’s chat about Sound Graffiti how the idea came about … My company CNNCTD+ is very much about making unexpected connections, and so we’re always looking for new ideas. Sound Graffiti was one of those ideas that just kind of hit us out of the blue. I’m a fan of the graffiti world—I used to do a bit back in the day—and of course I’ve always been involved in the music industry, and when we started working with Playbutton it just clicked to bring those two worlds together. [Photo: CNNTD+100 Playbuttons] We quickly envisioned using sound on the street in a million different ways. After that, the only thing was to create the physical listening stations, and that was just a lot of trial and error—a lot of wasted Plexiglas and wood. [Laughs] How have you started using Sound Graffiti? We just started imagining what it would be like if we could plaster sound all over the city the way images are everywhere, but doing it in a non-intrusive way. A fun project was the wall on Kenmare -– I could be wrong, but I believe it's the first interactive mural in New York. You can walk up to the wall, plug your headphones right into it and listen to the artist Jason Woodside talk about his work. We’ve also got Sound Graffiti listening stations outside of La Esquina, the New Museum, there’s a few in meatpacking district, and around other parts of the city. There’s one in the fashion district with 30 different people from the district—from Rebecca Minkoff to Nanette Lapore—talking about why the district is so important. Most recently CNNCTD+ worked with Kitsuné to place all 15 tracks from their America compilation in 15 locations all over the city to celebrate the album’s release. You can find each of them on our map at our website, www.cnnctd.com. Probably our biggest project so far has been CNNCTD+100, where we collaborated with 100 creative leaders to create original Sound Graffiti. Yoko Ono did one, Pharrell Williams, Spike Lee, Santigold, Paz de la Huerta, Mario Sorrenti, Cindy Sherman… There were a hundred total, and we displayed them all at a launch event May 1st at the New Museum.
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