Josh Kopeček
Creative Technologist
He's designed and built numerous pieces of technology, centering on walking and sound.
City of Floating Sounds by composer Huang Ruo in collaboration with Factory International is a symphonic audio experience. Josh created the app which powers the walking part. Participants play parts of the symphony out loud on their mobile devices. The project has toured to cities all over the world, such as the Lincoln Centre in New York, Beijing's National Centre for Performance Art, and the Royal Festival Hall at the Southbank Centre in London.
He's founder of ECHOES, a platform for publishing sound walks.
ECHOES is a sound walk platform which allows creators to make and publish incredible GPS-triggered audio walking experiences. ECHOES also designs bespoke apps which focus on sound and location, including 'Earth & Sky' for Bradford City of Culture 2025, The Royal Parks and The Royal Academy's collaborative 'Music for Trees' app; the 'Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK' app in collaboration with the New York Philharmonic in Central Park, New York, and many other locations across the US; the Zollverein UNESCO World Heritage Site audio guide and visitor app. More information is available on the ECHOES website project page.
He also acted as creative technologist for the large-scale interactive musical garden installation 'Symphonic Garden' for the Bundesgartenschau (BUGA) in Mannheim, Germany, sponsored by NEXT Mannheim, which includes interactive garden furniture and live sound all year round.
His company ECHOES has also received funding as part of the UKRI Digital Catapult 5G Testbed Heritage XR programme in Brighton, UK, in collaboration as part of a project led by Immersive Networks to develop cutting edge high-bandwidth spatial audio experiences utilising the latest android technologies for head tracking. The outcome is an immersive spatial audio guide for Brighton Dome delving into the undiscovered stories of Brighton.
ECHOES
Founder of ECHOES
ECHOES transforms physical spaces into immersive sonic experiences. The platform uses GPS- and iBeacon-triggered geofencing, as well as spatial audio to create soundwalks and audioguides that respond to where you are, allowing listeners to keep their phone in their pocket and focus on the world around them.
I founded ECHOES and built the core technologies that power location-based audio experiences for artists, museums, festivals, and institutions worldwide. The platform supports diverse spatial audio formats including binaural, 3D audio, and ambisonics, alongside beat synchronisation and branching narrative tools.
From intimate sound art installations to large-scale city tours, ECHOES gives tools to creators to craft experiences that transform how we listen and move through space.
CITY OF FLOATING SOUNDS
Symphonic walking audio experience
Playing with the boundaries of classical music performance, in the City of Floating Sounds Huang Ruo invites us to become performers by taking out our mobile devices and playing his music on the streets. The music synchronises between us to create an impromptu ensemble performance, where the concert goer is given the opportunity to play their part in the performance, creating agency for the listener and breaking boundaries in classical music performance
The performance culminates in an innovatively-staged live performance with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra at Aviva Studios in Manchester.
The technology for City of Floating Sounds had two challenging aspects:
- A mass synchronisation of audio – a huge logistical challenge, with people bringing every manner of device. Any concert goer should be able to download the app and start playing the audio and it be perfectly synced to everyone else's, without any tethering or pairing.
- A live heatmap of all concert-goers showing indeterminate location of other concert goers to create a more interactive and gamified performance.
We created and delivered a robust solution for this, available for download in the app stores.
Performances
Upcoming
Belgium, May 2027
Hong Kong, December 2027
More TBC…
Past
- June 2026 – Holland Festival – opening show, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- March 2026 – National Taichung Theater, Taichung, Taiwan
- October 2025 – Beijing Music Festival, China
- June 2025 – New Haven, US
- April 2025 – Southbank Centre
- July 2024 – Lincoln Center in New York
- June 2024 – Factory International · BBC
ICMC 2025
The computer music conference to end all computer music conferences
I was lucky enough to be invited to Boston to attend the 2025 ICMC (International Computer Music Conference) to take part in a panel talk on sound walks. They had also (in collaboration with Emerson College) commissioned 18 sound walks for Boston Common and Public Park. These are now available via the ECHOES app, and there are really some stunning pieces available for free, spanning the entire gamut of possibilities with sound walks.
- The livestreamed video of the Soundwalk Panel
- Emerson's writeup on the Boston Public Garden and Common sound walks
- The ICMC 2025 profile on ECHOES
DEEP TIME WALK
App rebuild
I am collaborating with the Deep Time Walk founders to rebuild their Deep Time Walk app, which allows listeners to step into the deep time history of earth.
Deep Time Walk is a transformative journey through 4.6bn years of Earth history via a 4.6km guided walk. It is an invitation to view the world differently, encouraging positive action and advocacy for a regenerative Earth.
vARdo
Innovative sonification aid
In collaboration with Richard Hemming, Senior Research Associate in Immersive at the ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures (CenSoF) in University of Bristol, I have been developing a unique digital app vARdo which enables blind and partially sighted users to detect objects using auditory scene analysis, effectively 'sonifying' objects in the space using onboarding cameras and AR technology.
Expected in 2025.
POINT.A
Synchronised audio theatre
POINT.A's ECLIPSING is a synchronised theatrical walking experience for multiple listeners. Andrew Schneider and Annie Saunders built on their extensive experience make site-specific artwork to develop this ground-breaking listening experience.
The technology allows multiple listeners to synchronise their listening experience together without any interaction, just start the performance and tune in.
It takes you on a journey where you're never quite sure what is part of the performance, and what's just in your headphones.
It is part of SXSW Film & TV Festival 2024, commissioned by the Long Center, Austin Texas, USA.
Read more on POINT.A's website.
LOVE IS THE HIGHEST ECONOMY
Massive scrolling light display
I created the technology in collaboration with Still Moving for an enormous light installation at the Civic Centre in Plymouth, commissioned by Plymouth Culture.
The commission features 17.5-metre-high scrolling text using ultra-high efficiency LED bulbs.
SYMPHONIC GARDEN
Interactive garden
I designed and created the technology for an interactive garden in collaboration with the Symphonic Garden team: composer Emmanuel Witzthum, architect Lila Chitayat, and percussionist Itamar Doari.
It features an interactive trampoline, benches, and movement sensors, as well as the time of day and weather sensors.
It was commissioned by NEXT Mannheim and premiered at the BUGA (Bundesgartenschau) 2023.
