binaural

In which three people go to the pool and the gym: one wearing microphones in their ears; the other two wearing headphones and listening to the sound being recorded from the first person’s point of view hearing.

(Best listened to with headphones.)

architecture of the invisible

So, when we last saw our intrepid locative artists they were wondering around the Banff Centre campus looking for invisible architecture (coming from the analogy that sound/media scapes are experienced in a similar way to moving through architecture).

We toured several locations an heard some really great ideas, but rather than detailing them here, what I want to do instead is note down some of the different approaches for describing them.

Our journey to the first fictional spectacle took the form of a parade: following the (real) sound of drumming whilst holding (imaginary) objects in the air. Once we had reached the location our invisible objects provided the material from which the augmented reality sculpture was formed.

I’ve since chatted with this particular invisible architect about the importance of stage-setting and the use of other theatrical/performance techniques and I think we both came to the conclusion that they could be used more in locative media.

Whilst the architects almost exclusively described their creations verbally, one person had prepared a narrative that described the experience of viewing/using their invention. Theatre too, right?

I’d made a few sketches of the location for my invisible architecture, but had deliberately not drawn in more than a hint of the augmented elements. As you can see by the penultimate photo on this page this echoes the prompts that were there in the non-augmented reality. After a quick vote we decided that we didn’t really need the fictional goggles to see the fictional reality!

This invisible architecture addressed the sense of smell – something usually neglected in locative media. Were we prompted to remember a series of smells …or to remember the memory of smelling the smells…?

The session wrapped up with a hike down the Hoodoo Trail. In Silence.

Walk to the centre of your acoustic universe from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

Most of us had been down this section of trail before, so when we were instructed to consider a particular tree as the centre of our acoustic universe and to walk towards it (a 15-minute walk?) in silence, we all knew which one. I like the way this architecture played off memory and anticipation to create a radius of experience that extended far beyond the site of the tree.

I think this might bring me back to a comment I made whilst talking about my architecture: the pictures are better on radio”.

So, how to use these elements in our present-day work?

the nature of stuff

Yesterday was a day of presentations with artists and peer advisors giving short introductions to their practice and Almost Perfect projects. Today were the technical interviews and some sessions on GPS led by Daniel Belasco Rogers.

After talking the talk we headed out into the snow with some GPS units to map the Banff Centre campus.

This included experimenting with some of the quirks and short-comings of the technology and then comparing tracks by superimposing the data onto Google Earth.

I’ve just got back from the canteen and a wide-ranging conversation from which I have distilled this diagram as a memento:

And now to the pub and the election results…

Sample

The weather’s been really nice for the last couple of days so today we were able to try out a couple of different GPS/walking projects.

In the morning we were sent off in the general direction of town with iPAQs loaded with Eryn Foster‘s Infrastructure Map and Duncan Speakman‘s Always Something Somewhere Else.

After lunch we had a go at Tracklines. This took us along the valley at the foot of where we hiked up to yesterday. Cue more photos:

All in all some great walks with respect to exploring the local area, but also good for getting a feel for different approaches to using locative media.

Almost Perfect

Late last night I arrived at the Banff Centre for the Almost Perfect residency I’ll be doing throughout November.

It was dark when I arrived (and, admittedly, I had my eyes shut for most of the drive over from Calgary airport) so I had no idea of what sort of terrain I was coming into other than being aware that I could see many, many more stars than I was used to and there were some quite pointy silhouettes at the side of the road.

It was still dark when I drew my curtains this morning so that wasn’t much more informative.

A hike up Tunnel Mountain this afternoon put things into perspective though:

In the photo above you can see the Banff Centre campus in the near left-hand corner, with Banff town to the right. Here’s the view to the other side:

The rest of today was taken up with meeting and greeting and orientation stuff, but my first impressions are that it’s an amazing place and I’m very excited to be here. For the time being though, I sleep.