A Lullaby for the City is an augmented reality public artwork by Sahar Sajadieh and Manaswi Mishra. It presents the interspecies soundscape of Vancouver over a 24-hour period, through a 24-minute audio piece that begins at midnight. It captures the sounds of the city at night, featuring the occasional sounds of cars and garbage trucks passing by, as well as the nocturnal songs of birds such as the Great Horned Owl, Barred Owl, and Western Screech-Owl. About an hour or two before sunrise, Vancouver awakens to the dawn chorus of birds, weaving the first threads of the day’s soundscape.

As the light comes out, the sound of cars gradually joins the birds’ chorus, which is slowly fading away, followed by the sounds of traffic hum, SkyTrain whooshes, construction noise, cyclists zipping, and a multilingual ambient chatter. The city’s soundscape changes throughout the day, with various natural and urban sounds chiming in until sunset, when the evening chorus comes to life, joining the sound of the city’s exhausted chaos. After a few hours, as the city begins to quiet down, its sounds gradually subside, with occasional sirens, night buses, slow chatter, music from bars, passersby’s footsteps, wind, and crickets composing the epilogue of the drowsy city’s soundscape, marking the ending of the 24-hour sound journey of Vancouver.

This AR spatial audio artwork—activated via the Hoverlay app for visitors (within 50 ft of the murals)—augments Priscilla Yu’s “Heron’s Dreamscape” by incorporating the cross-species 24-hour soundscape of the city into a 24-minute lullaby for the city.