Resound 2025

Resound is a research-through-design project exploring roles for technology in spiritualism, here in daily Buddhist chanting practices. The Resound sphere is an Internet-connected device that creates a sense of connection through sound between community members as they chant the Daimoku. This builds on Caroline Claisse's autoethnographic work in a Nichiren Buddhism community responding to the COVID pandemic through their unsatisfactory use of existing technologies, like Zoom.

In developing this project we have made multiple prototypes, working with the community to test our understanding of this sensitive context. Our first sketches related to sound: could we create a system that responded to the sounds of chanting? This p5.js sketch is an early demonstration; it is tuned to 150 Hz, produced by a low drone:

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As our design developed, we understood the importance of attention in this practice: to be accepted into everyday use our system required modesty — never taking centre stage. Our design draws on the existing paraphernalia of this practice, specifically the bells and candles, without appropriating their religious symbology. The sphere contains a speaker, microphone, lighting and WiFi-connected microcontroller, using circuits and software we designed. In operation, the system creates a sense of connection by abstractly reproducing the frequency of simultaneous chants from remote community members, while respecting the privacy of each space.

These papers describe in detail our design of the Resound sphere and our consideration of how such technologies may be built and maintained in communities over long periods of time:

Resound is an Open Lab project at Newcastle University, with Ben Morris, Caroline Claisse and Abigail Durrant, and Sara Wolf of the University of Würzburg. It was funded by EPSRC Centre for Digital Citizens (EP/T022582/1).