Road Echoes

Road Echoes envisions a digital future where data that has been passively collected can be tangible and interactive. Currently, most personal data is collected by large companies and this is expected to continue. How can you take hold of this (your!) data and use it for your benefit? Road Echoes aims to transform this intangible data into an interactive artefact and use it to support the reflective process. The use of location data to support reminiscence is underexplored in design. Current digital location history data often lacks material form, limiting casual engagement and reflection on life experiences. Road Echoes aims to transform this intangible data into an interactive artefact. By combining digital location history with music, Road Echoes offers a new approach to reminiscence, making passive data tangible and interactive. 

Do you know what personal data is being captured at this moment?

Road Echoes addresses the challenge of how we remember road trips. While photos capture moments, they often miss the everyday experiences that define a road trip. Location history lacks a physical form, leaving these memories unexplored. Road Echoes aims to fill this gap by making location data interactive, allowing people to relive road trip memories in a more engaging way. Using music and location data, the project reimagines how road trips are remembered, blending technology with meaningful life experiences.

The prototype captures the essence of a road trip by linking music and locations. It uses Spotify and Google Maps data to create a 3D terrain disc that visually represents the journey. Music played during the road trip is overlaid onto the geographic data, allowing users to relive their experiences by placing the disc on a music player. As the car playhead moves across the disc, it plays songs tied to specific locations, with an AI narrator providing contextual information and personal anecdotes. This design turns passive data collection into an interactive experience, encouraging reflection. Road Echoes goes beyond traditional photo-based memories, using music, narration, and location to help people reconnect with forgotten moments from their travels in a tactile and immersive way.

Road Echoes explores how digital location data can be transformed into a tangible, interactive form to support reflection on life experiences. While location history data is often intangible, Road Echoes materialises this data, blending it with music to evoke vivid memories of road trips. By linking songs to specific locations, the project encourages deeper engagement with past journeys, triggering memories beyond what photos can capture. This approach showcases the potential of slow technology to enhance personal reflection by making passive data more meaningful and immersive.