Hackney residents, groups and businesses are being urged to get involved in a new interactive radio project, mapping the borough using sound.

The award-winning producers of Hackney Podcast, an online documentary programme, are behind a new adventure in sound, which gets going this week.

Hackney Hear is a free mobile phone app, set to launch in January 2012, which triggers interviews, music and poetry using satellite signalling system GPS as you travel through the borough.

Famous Hackney residents such as writer Iain Sinclair and poet Michael Rosen as well as members of the borough’s Turkish and Vietnamese communities will contribute to the features. And new artwork will be included from the likes of poet Lemn Sissay and electro-musician Kaffe Matthews.

Francesca Panetta of the Hackney Podcast, which won at the 2010 Sony Radio Academy Awards and 2010 New York Festival Program Awards, told the Gazette: “The idea is to cover the whole of the borough in sounds - so you experience a place in different ways.

“You could be walking across Hackney Downs listening to music written to be heard there.

“We want to encourage people to help in whatever way they can - bringing in stories and recordings, or providing financial support.”

More information will be available at the Hackney Hear launch party at Red Gallery in Rivington Street, Shoreditch on Friday (March 18), where performers will include poets Michael Rosen and Shane Solanki, sound artist Word the Cat, and musicians PaperDollhouse and Earl Zinger. It is open to everyone.

For more details on the project and the party, go to www.hackneyhear.com or email mail@hackneyhear.com.