Photo Credit: Kashi Vivek Buddha
The Mission District is one of San Francisco’s oldest neighborhoods, named after a Spanish mission built in 1776. The neighborhood is one of the most notable centers for Chicano culture—perhaps exemplified by a new art installation called the Bop Spotter.
The Bop Spotter is simply a “crappy Android phone, set to Shazam constantly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.” It’s solar-powered and the mic is pointed down at the street below. Riley Walz says he was inspired to create what he calls ‘culture surveillance’ by the police use of ShotSpotter, which can detect gunfire with startling accuracy.
Instead of gunfire, Bop Spotter listens closely to music that is happening around the installation and relays the songs played back to Walz’s website. “It’s not about catching criminals. It’s about catching vibes. A constant feed of what’s popping off in real-time,” Walz says.
The Bop Spotter has only been gathering two days of songs played so far, but stats on the website say it has collected a total of 604 Shazams. That’s an average of 138.1 songs per day. Perhaps unsurprising given the neighborhood’s roots, many of the songs are Spanish-language bops. There’s a genuine mix of tunes flowing through this intersection, highlighted by an old Android device with some clever tinkering to keep it running.
At 1:01 PM today, someone rolled through blasting Celine Dion’s “All By Myself,” while at 3:58 AM someone was really enjoying the works of Natti Natasha, blasting “Tu Loca,” “Quiereme Menos,” and “Quien Sabe” back to back in a 15 minute spread. There was a brief period today where the phone appeared to be down, but it’s back cataloging the tunes it can pick up.
The idea is an interesting one and it’s essentially what music technology company Audoo is doing for local spaces that play music so the artists and creatives behind that music can get paid for those public plays. Vibe catchers littered all over cities like this could ostensibly provide incredible insight into what the general public is listening to from their car radios, phones, and yes—even Bluetooth speakers. Want to check out the latest Mission District bops? Head over to Bop Spotter to see.
