Members
Assignment Wording
"For the assignment you are to develop a project for a place influenced by beginnings. The project should aim to heighten a feeling of secrecy/intimacy based on the idea of transportation."
Final concept
This concept is based on the idea of soundwalking, audioguided touring around the city. The usual soundwalk is characterized as instructing - to give examples from the curriculum it's worth mentioning Toby Butlers text "A walk of art: the potential of the sound walk as practice in cultural geography” (Urban Adventure, February 19.) both the New York "Soundwalk - audio guides for insiders", and Toby's own project "memoryscape.org.uk". Our twist to this sort of mediated action was to incorporate an narrative, where the participant is able to choose from different paths during the walk.
In other words we've been working with, on one hand, putting a filter on top of reality, the world as it's usually experienced, and on the other rethinking the "monologue" or one-way communication of the usual soundwalk. Here the participant is able to decide the different turns of the story. Working with Hemment's categories we reckoned we've emphasized the narrative part under the topic Geo-annotation. In reality it's a social authoring because it layers the everyday world with a pattern of fiction. To support this even further we've introduced various sound effects, different voices and music.
Viewed in this perspective the participant then becomes the performer, completing the 'story', carrying out actions, movements etc while transporting him/her-self + an object through the quarters, more or less guided by the tracks on the mp3-player. Through the storyline and the sounds - which are only revealed to the listener - the quarters are mapped subjectively by the narrative dimension as well as by the potential atmospheres. It becomes the public background for a secret play-write in which the listener decides the outcome without knowing it in advance.
In short this project has evolved around turning the ordinary "from a to b"-SPACES into PLACES with a certain identity linked to them.
Have fun… Group Blue Cheese
Presenting the project
The walk is carried out partly around the Latin Quarters of Århus by the participant transporting an object - a sealed envelope - while listening to the mp3-player. The actual assignment of the narrative is based on the envelope. In general it's a crimestory, where the listener works as the deliveryboy for the "Uncle" - a imaginary mafia type boss. The contents of the envelope vary from the different final ends, at one time it's used to get rid of "Uncle", a couple of times it's money which then leads the listener or "I" of the story to different solutions; running away, getting murdered, giving it to the church in regret. In general the tour is divided into two types of narrator. Beginning in the backalley outside the "Dengang" shop (without knowing) the participant has to choose between narrators in the first intersection: If going down Studsgade you're faced with an paranoid small time criminal (heavy breaths, disoriented speaking, asking to look behind your back), going down Volden you're on top of the criminal world (First track down the street is accompanied by Bee Gees "Staying Alive"). We've tried to get inspired by the surroundings; the parts around Paradisgade and Studsgade were suited for the paranoia and conspiquicy, for instance there's not nearly as many people as in the other direction, where as well the shops and buzz connotates to the big spender-type of character.
As an addition three of the plotlines ends with phonecalls (one with an cellphone call from a norwegian-speaking "Lotte", two end with the same speak from "Uncle" but one's from a payphone, the other a cellphone). As well we've tried to work with the surroundings. Hoping to lead the listeners attention to the spots there's written the name of Lotte in graffiti three times down Studsgade. One plotline end with walking in through a opening where there's a big neonsign above it saying "UNCLE" plus a text in the alley saying "My Uncle has a strange name, but everybody just calls him Uncle" (something the narrator briefly mentioned earlier, though on the tour it’s said in Danish). We’ve also worked with the opening hours of the church on Store Torv (Århus Domkirke); depending on the time of day the tour is taken, a locked door automatically leaves just one option left on this particular plotline.
In addition to these endings we made a short, non-canon ending, if the participant opens the envelope. In the envelope is a note saying "Go to track 10". This track is basically just the narrator yelling at the participant for opening the envelope, when he/she wasn't supposed to.
As mentioned above, the narrator tries to divert the participants attention towards some graffiti-covered walls. This, along with several other occurrences like it, underline the whole spaces-to-places idea - as David Pinder mentions in Ghostly Footsteps: "Iain Chambers has suggested that using a Walkman in the city ‘offers the possibility of a micro-narrative, a customised story and soundtrack, not merely a space but a place, a site of dwelling’.".1 By mentioning otherwise uninteresting things, things that would probably normally be overlooked, we infuse the empty spaces with meaning, thus creating places - It's no longer just some graffiti, it's a message; it's no longer the same church you've passed countless times, it's a chance for salvation. This will, hopefully, make the participant more aware of objects and areas, that he/she would otherwise have ignored.
We used music during the soundwalk in order to better create a unique experience for the participant. The music is carefully chosen to fit the mood of each particular track: If the participant ends up choosing the route that leads to him/her getting shot, he/she will first hear odd, "nervous" music, in order to match the narrator's growing paranoia, and later, a few seconds after getting killed, a silent, melancholic melody will start.
This is done in order to better create different feelings for the participant - as Jean-Paul Thibaud puts it: "Depending upon the music listened to, the city takes on varying tones and moods. The attention paid to the elements of the visual landscape seems to depend in particular upon the musical style."2
To sum things up the participant is guided partly by instructions on the tracks and partly by their own choices of direction, which then effects the narrative course (turning left will lead the story to a different outcome than turning right). The narration is influenced by the atmosphere of the different routes possible and the surroundings, sound-effects, speaks and background-music. In general "Spaces to Places - an Soundwalk Narrative" is an attempt to layer reality with fiction.
Pictures
Map of the route(s):
One of the routes ends up at this cheerful location:
Here's Torben, recording in front of domkirken:
Download the audiowalk
If you want to listen to our audiowalk, or maybe even try it out yourself, you can download it here.
It starts out in front of the small shop Dengang, in an alley in Graven.
The tracks for the audiowalk can be downloaded via one of the following links:
http://www.mediafire.com/?a25ftnmypt0
http://rapidshare.com/files/105541946/Blue_Cheese.zip.html
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EBIVGGOB
Critique
1. We could have spent more time on the story. A better and more definite manuscript would have opened up further opportunities for instance recorded dialogues. There's pieces of the tour where the listener might feel "mishandled", simply because of the many things you have to keep in mind while recording.
2. It could be said that there’s an unfortunate clash between the speaker in story and character and the instructing voice. It seems a bit unnatural mentioning “I’m now crossing the street to the left hand side” when there’s (in the story that is) nobody there. We’ve tried to make it work and it functions, but there’s definitely ways around such dilemmas.
3. From a pure technical point of view, the sound quality could have been better. A few times the narrators voice is muffled by the wind - a better microphone would probably have helped.
Different theoretical texts used
(#) Hemment, D. (2006). “Locative Arts”. Leonardo, 39(4). ISSN: 0024094X. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/leonardo/toc/len39.4.html. Pp. 348-355.
Bull, M. (2005). No Dead Air! The iPod and the Culture of Mobile Listening. Leisure Studies, 24(4), pp. 343 - 355. ISSN: 0261-4367. http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=g723805936~db=all
Butler, T. (2006). A walk of art: the potential of the sound walk as practice in cultural geography. Social & Cultural Geography, 7(6), pp. 889 - 908. http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=g769870001~db=all
Pinder, D. (2001). Ghostly Footsteps: Voices, Memories and Walks in the City. pp. 1-19. http://cgj.sagepub.com/content/vol8/issue1/
Thibaud, J.-P. (2003). The sonic composition of the city. In M. Bull & L. Back (Eds.), The Auditory Culture Reader.
Flanagan, Mary. "Locating Play and Politics: Real World Games and Political Action."
Borden, 2000. The unknown city : contesting architecture and social space. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Pp 3-24
Lefebvre, Henri. 1991 [1974]. The production of space. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-18177-6. Pp 26-33.
Rethinking the project (Assignment given on March 11.)
Having to re-think the original idea we shifted five spaces ahead and ended up with "open maps". This lead to an addition. Instead of a audiowalk which lead the participant through the experience, we incorporated choices; Coming to a crossroad the participant is asked to choose between two options. "If turning left select track 3, going right track 4". That way the map can be freely negociated by the participant, only bordered by the outer lines of the narrative. If we were able to track various contestors, we could then record and make an descriptive mapping of the navigation of the participants - kind of like Amsterdam Realtime.
Feedback from Johanne and Lone
Interesting concept and relevant choices of theory. Your incorporation of chance into an audio walk which is normally highly scripted and makes the choices for the participant, is a great idea. When looking for volunteers, you could also spread the idea on mailing lists at the institute? Or maybe even outside the university. Finding an audience could certainly be a relevant part of your actual project.
