Design Map · Eindhoven
Beyond Listening
Graduation project by Julian Allgöwer at Design Academy Eindhoven, 2026. Shown during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven on Design Map, location F5.
‘Beyond Listening’ explores how music can reconnect people in an age of personalised streaming and algorithmic recommendation. Rather than treating songs as private background noise, the project asks what happens when the memories they carry are shared collectively. Combining sound design and participatory research, the work transforms listening into a ritual of storytelling that encourages conversation, vulnerability, and connection. At its centre is a rotating 3D-printed light-and-sound sculpture with three gramophone-like speakers surrounded by circular seating. In its ‘Everyday Mode’, the installation plays songs alongside the personal stories they evoke. During ‘Live Mode’, participants select a track and record the memory attached to it, gradually building a collective archive shaped by lived experience rather than algorithmic logic. The project shifts listening from an individual habit to a shared social practice, celebrating music as one of humanity’s oldest ways of creating belonging and community.