Mapping the maps

Traces from the three walkers (Russ, Jane, Jackie) last Tuesday - overlaid on a new map for the live area, co-ordinates to be used by Ben for the web playback too - although the map image will be redesigned for the website.

Hilltop Harmonies...

Very exciting today - hearing the students' sounds, post-produced last week by Alex, Jane and Russ, and  mapped as a first sketch on SandPoint by Jackie this weekend... and here we are, listening, dancing, captivated by sound, trying not to be blown away! Russ beating the boundaries so we have an accurate trace of the area that will be used in March ready for Ben on the website.

And then an afternoon of mentoring sessions with the Media Diploma students: Jane on project planning and management, Russ on mapping music and creating the landscape, Jackie on traces  for mapmaking and video editing.

Looking forward to the Party in April...

Mscape Workshop

On Monday 18th January we welcomed Dr Constance Fleuriot of Featherhouse and the Pervasive Media Studio, to join us for an mscape workshop with Locking students. Despite delays caused by a supermarket fire and road closures, Constance showed the students how to successfully navigate around the mscape toolkit. The apple training room was turned into a pc environment to run the mscape software, and the interactive whiteboard (touchscreen) added to the demonstration! In pairs, the students made their own mscapes - programming regions to trigger music, show photos, use speakers in which the sound gets louder towards a central point, and to use the map aligner to show where they are walking outside. The scapes were rapidly loaded onto ipaqs and tested outside with great success.

Thanks to everyone for another action-packed day of Soundlines!

new cultural journeys

inspired by this blog today

Post production

The music post production event in action, deep in the heart of Alexs' music den.

Music maestro mastering the majestic mish mash of swirly sound......

Thanks to Alex for clear concise work and 100% focus. Soundlines becomes a step closer to becoming a hilltop reality.

Community gathering day - December on Sand Point

What a WINDY day! The sea was boiling up into a big clash with the thick river Severn water. Extraordinary. Brrrr.
Strata C. (plus dogs hats jumpers and scarves) were on the loose gathering film for the film generating mediascape and comments from the 'community' - aka the general public. Thanks to everyone who gave time on this brisk and blustery day to say a few words.

A meeting at the Pervasive Media Stuio afterwards was warm and tranquil by contrast. Ben Calders' can-do attitude makes us full of optimism for the Soundlines website.....

soundlines animation day

36 lovely 'boiling' 'roobarb-and-custard style' animations made by students and staff will be ready for the website walks....

soundlines music day

Up-helly-aaa!
Amazing, well done Worle and Locking, and all the Strata team, and the staff who supported us so well - we have come away with tons of really interesting sounds, rhythms and new compositions which are going to make the best Soundlines walk ever.
You just wait till you hear it.

Sand Point - school visits / Soundlines project

Well, yes, we were biting our fingernails about rain, wind, weather in general .... but the puddles receeded (fortunately for the cycling animator), the clouds lifted and thick shafts of light and land revealed themselves all around.
A brilliant day with two batches of students from Worle College , Priory School, and Locking Primary. We looked at views,tried to decide if it was Wales, China(?) or France ... everyone worked away at their sketches for the animations, and stories just - dropped from the air. Including the tale of the Incredible Tsunami of 1607 (pictured above). A sobering tale.

Here are some students racing Jane up the hill to find some treasure:

















And some more on Swallow Cliff filming and taking photos.


So, many thanks to all the staff who made today possible - we're looking forward to the music day, and can't wait to see all the sketchbooks , film, photos and animations.

weather......

It's a buffeting wind and a gloomy sky today, but surely the weather will be kind to us on Tuesday, when we venture up 'The Hill' with the Soundlines students!

Soundlines Starts!

After nearly a year 'brewing', a summer of planning, and juggling diaries with all the different  people & places, today was the first workshop session of Soundlines at Worle School, with staff and students from Worle, Priory and Locking Primary.

Come rain or shine!

Just a few of the walks made by today's 20 or so walkers, who admirably braved the torrential rain to explore Soundlines on Sand Point. (They weren't really swimming in the sea - though it may have felt a bit like it at the end! I think the mapping of Sand Point is as variable as the tides!)
(Pictures and video documentation to follow later)

We went to the liminal zone and back again. Now a different rhythm & view, time to sit and feel the elements, smell the sea, move inside to the rolling tides of rhythm, enjoy a moment of infinity

Spot on, and sunny!

The trigger point and all going well, beautiful music, sunshine and happy collies too.
See you all tomorrow x

Soundlines at Interactive Avebury

Today Soundlines had it's first public testing, with mediascapes (and ipaqs and headphones available to borrow) as part of Avebury Interactive, on Avebury Open Day 2009.

It was a good success, with some lovely appreciative feedback.

Live from the field...

Mapping traces and soundfeatures for interactive avebury.

(sent by mobile from the secret little area in Avebury that does have phone signal!)

Triple Traces and Rainbows

Mapping Sand Point.

3 traces by 3 walkers.

All the colours of the rainbow...

Sand Point - making the Trace

Me slowly turning round - Russ determinedly striding out!




Amazing sunset over Cardiff ..... strange green light on Exmoor, shimmering edges where land meets sea, on and on into the west.

Living Landscapes

Living Landscapes, AHRC conference at Aberystwyth University last Thurs - Sun was a back to back rich multidisciplinary wonderful pool of interesting experiences.
Lots of sound and space and walking - not much technology. This beautiful collage sent to us as lovely souvenir, with photos by Cara Brostrom, captures some of the magic moments..
Who's in that tree?

finger on the pulse

finger on the pulse
ears open
look up look round
walk the paths
connecting
yesterday's horizon with tomorrow's horizon
listen
see

Fwd: Living Landscapes - thursday

I tried emailing this from my mobile - but it didn't reach the blog.. so here it is, sorted.. Date: 2009/6/18 Subject: Living Landscapes - thursday Im at Aberystwyth University for a 4 day, action-packed conference on landscape & environment. So first thing we learnt how to say welcome in Welsh.. Croeso... And the welsh word for locality, place to which one belongs, locating humanlife in the environment is Cynefin. George Monbiot gave a moving opening address, with todays climate report an ominous challenge, but stressing the need for us all to engage with climate breakdown as the pervading issue, and using creativity to get peoples prefrontal cortexs waking up from denial, and minds changing. Then a plenary on 'post-discplinary' exchange, from material science to theatre research and cultural geogaphy. Next a performance/pesentation/paper from the weeklong body weather residential in snowdonia - bhuto, permeable nature and body/landscape as continuously changing and bringing eachother into being. Nice. Acoustic landscapes with wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson was great, loved the female cheetah purring. And the amazing mini habitat of flies and vultures inside the carcass of azebra. Freshly killed zebra. For a bedtime dreaming his 16 min. Installation of 12 hour desert night sounds of the kalahari... I can still 'see' the stars!And inbetween all that was an hour performance of an audio piece for and about the Ancolme valley in lincolnshire. (look s a lot like the somerset levels...) More tomorrow.... With an early 7am start for performances in the landscape workshop.

Whitesheet Soundlines

Sunday, Strata test walks on the hill...

With wonderful old hawthorn tree.

[This is using a pre-release version of mscape, which I was testing out for e-merge.

It's fine playing Soundlines on the ipaqs but a few teething problems running on the HTC phone - appears to rotate the whole map by 90` which was very confusing!]

Apart from the residency of two very large bulls, one in each of the mapped fields, it was a beautiful day to explore the hill discovering sounds and getting a suntan!

Tuesday evening I went back for a solo experience. I love the overlays of rythms and textured sounds, intensifying with the contours of the land. Moving slowly the sounds and patterns in space start to connect - a feeling of absence when I left the rich sounds of the round barrow. Quickly enchanted by discovering a tiny band of flute, that blows in the wind. The wind catching the headphones - sounds inside or out? Recapturing the flute, staying very still, a shaft opening up in the space of the landscape, if I stay still the melody uncurls, telling a story of time deep and passed. Then I follow a surface line, traversing the hilltop, crisp and sharp, rattley rythm.. has someone walked here before.. As I follow the sound follows the path. A new area beyond the ditched earthworks. And an invisible sound-mirror of the barrow - sound echoing form, creating a new sense of place, relationship and passing. Walking back I see a cow and calf following an unmarked path. Soundlines connect me as I follow them on my own unmarked path. Soundlines reaching out to the paragliders in the air, to the ripples in the grass, perfumed by orchids. Captivating, enhanced.

soundlines thoughtlines

The soundlines walk becomes a different experience depending on the time of day.

Afternoon is business like and you can stride out, cover the ground / sounds with ease.
Late evening turns the user to the sunset clouds, draws the feet to where the view is best. It's easier to linger.
Beyond dusk, coming into dark, you can enjoy an isolation of sound and motion, there's leisure to stop, no distraction. Firefly lights from the PDA making traces through the dusky shadows. Solitary dancers.

Test 2 - for Whitesheet Hill

So here's the second test - lots of different combinations of layering sound to test in the open spaces and ancient landscape of Whitesheet Hill on Sunday with Strata.

This is a screenshot from the mscape software I'm using to map the sounds onto the land.

Should be an interesting walk...

First Soundwalk!

Walks in Lower Coleford after dusk...
Elemental rythms, melodies and ambients as first demos of the Soundlines experience. Wonderful! Soft beautiful imagery watching a shadowy figure, lit by PDA, twisting and turning exploring the sound of the place - each figure moves in its own special way, soft round lines, dashing zig zag marks, structured solid blocks.