May 29th, 2010 - Introduction and Project Proposal
Background
Alternative Party 2009; 2D Drawing Installation
Marking the Territory 2010; 3D Drawing Installation
Working as Glittermouse, I have recently developed a series of installations using multimedia to explore issues relating to the urban environment, especially those of public ownership. This has included live installations at club nights, a large scale contribution to Alternative Party; Art and Technology Exhibition in Helsinki in October 2009 and most recently a fully spatial solo installation titled Marking the Territory at The Link Gallery in Manchester during April 2010. This used multiple digital and analogue projections in creating an environmental response to issues of ownership in urban spaces and used traditional drawing techniques to interact with these projections on the surfaces of laser-etched objects. Sound also played an important role and real world samples came together with circuit bent homemade instruments by Ne7 (Andrew Lemon; Lemon Multimedia – featured in May Future Music Magazine) in an audio collaboration which further discussed city spaces.
Frequently taking a live format, the moment of interaction is an important focus in this work and using a range of research strategies it has been identified that environmental interactivity is an important element that allows us to feel ‘at home’ in our cities. For this reason, I am now looking at ways to include audiences directly in the work and have recently launched the public participation project This Belongs To in which contributors use light and shadows to temporarily claim spaces.
This Belongs To; Public Participation Project
Development
In order to develop these concepts I am now looking into including responsive technologies to produce environments or objects that move the work out of the gallery space and into the streets, allowing it to inhabit the same spaces it discusses. It is planned that these objects will allow users to interact with public spaces in a playful way while encouraging engagement with the issue of public ownership. The Project aim for the first season of the TINT Arts Lab is to research interactive technologies and produce physical test pieces to generate designs and trial objects towards a development outcome for This Belongs To that would be used to interact with and temporarily claim urban spaces.
Initial concept sketches for This Belongs To development
Initial Plan/Requirements:
- Concept development phase (mind maps/sketchbook work/responses to initial feedback)
- Production of a series of laser etching trials on acrylic
- Research into interactive electronics such as movement/light/pressure sensors
- Production of test objects
- Development of design for interactive object including possible prototype
Outcome:
Evidence of achieving the aim will be presented in the format of visual documentation of ideas generation (eg scans of mind map/sketchbook pages) and photo/video documentation of trials and test pieces followed by sketches, plans and possible prototypes for an interactive object. Ongoing written reflection/blogging will be maintained in addition to this and will focus on responding to feedback received through the lab process. I’m excited to have this opportunity of developing this work within a wider community of practitioners and look forward to responding to your thoughts!
Pau (June 1st, 2010 at 7:05 pm)
I understand that your project is about claiming urban spaces by projecting a label on a façade or wall. I am wondering if you have thought about expanding the presence of this ephemeral action by, for instance:
Adding a connection to Google Maps (easiest, publish a marker with a photo of the projected label)
Creating a physical label with some sort of connection to a network or community (not the same but similar to: Yellow Arrow Project: http://yellowarrow.net/v3/projects.html)
Projecting on touristic sites so that the action is involuntarily recorded by the cameras of tourists and visitors (in a similar way but with a different approach: Julius von Bismarck’s Image Fulgurator – http://www.juliusvonbismarck.com/fulgurator/)
Just some thoughts…
Best,
Pau
res001 (June 2nd, 2010 at 6:04 pm)
Thank you for your thoughts; some interesting ideas and useful links. I like the idea of potentially linking to a map, this ties in with some ideas I have already so some definite food for thought. I have thought also about projecting within an external environment but I need to look into how to achieve this technically.
The Image Fulgurator reminds me of this by Troika: http://troika.uk.com/smsguerrillaprojector …
Again, thanks :)
Annabeth/Glittermouse
Susan (June 5th, 2010 at 1:38 pm)
Your goal of flushing out moments of actions that reveal what makes us/anyone “at home” in urban spaces makes for an interesting project. I recently had a student try to do a project in which she used bystanders’ comments on tablets projected onto part of the campus architecture in our university. The project was not well thought-through but it did uncover some definite “discomfort” on the part of bystander-students, who had difficulty interacting. You are wise to design this carefully. I wonder about the nature of the sound, which is not exactly described, only technology specified, in the earlier projects. Will sound be part of “This Belongs To” ?
Annabeth (Glittermouse) (June 7th, 2010 at 6:17 pm)
Hi Susan, thanks for your comments. I have some experience with attempting to engage members of the public in various settings (as well as being a bystander myself!) and recognise that this is a challenging area. So far, I have had more initial enthusiasm for the current format of This Belongs To than I expected, however this is not reflected by the limited submissions. I have found responses to other projects improved by an element of return, e.g. a giveaway of free prints appeared to improve survey responses. Though this is a different situation, a similar approach might be taken (as long as it is affordable!). I think Vincent’s comment also questions some of these elements so I will refer more to that issue in response to his post.
Sound has been used in installations as an additional illustration of the urban experience and to encourage those passing through to spend longer in the space. I am aware of some electronic components which might be used to include sound but have not yet planned to include it directly. I would say that I do not anticipate it becoming a part of the immediate developments but as I expect this to be an ongoing series of experiments that will continue evolving over the course of the project, I would be very interested to include it at a later stage. This might be realised by involving proximity sensors or a response to sounds found in the environment such as public tannoy announcements or pedestrian crossing bleeps.
Vincent (June 6th, 2010 at 4:37 pm)
Hi, I assume you know their work but I want to mention http://graffitiresearchlab.com who did great research on how technology can be used alternatively in urban space.
In my experience it can be quite difficult to engage others to make use of artistic/experimental tools in urban space. Are you planing to hold workshops/events to join people in their investigations or will the project be solely published online? I also wonder whether you intend to ”design” a single tool with a fixed functionality or rather something like a tool kit. Which would be a collection of modules that could be used in various combinations to build a very own tool to reclaim the urban.
I’ve done projector based projects and seen the GRL laser tagger live. In both cases I felt that the participants where easily intimidated by their believe not to be a skilled drawer. As seems that your project is very visual would this be an issue?
Lastly, would you see your work aiming to be temporary interventions or rather permanent nature?
res001 (June 7th, 2010 at 6:23 pm)
Hi Vincent, thanks for this input.
Yes, I would definitely site Graffiti Research Lab as a contextual reference in this work; I’m especially fond of the laser tagger so I’m a little bit jealous that you’ve seen it live ;)
As I also mentioned in reply to Susan, I have similar experience that one cannot assume audience members will respond to invitations to participate and am aware that this is possibly the most significant challenge I will work with in this project. I would certainly hope to organise workshops or events however I also have experience that these are not always easy to organise either for reasons of funding! There are a couple of potential exhibition opportunities coming up over the next few months so if these come to fruition I will definitely aim to organise a workshopped element into it. My plan for now is to work on developing the physical/technical/conceptual aspects in preparation for future opportunities. The publication of This Belongs To will be kept up for continuity in the mean time but I would say that workshops form a large part of my eventual ambitions for the project. I recognise also your observation that participants can be discouraged by a perceived lack of skill in drawing and am hopeful that the nature of some of the techniques I have been using which, when simplified, would essentially involve tracing existing images might go some way to address this. It will be difficult to evaluate this assumption until I have an opportunity to trial it but it is a technique I have used successfully in teaching entry level groups where confidence is notoriously low.
I like the idea of a tool kit and though I did not envisage it to be quite like that I certainly expected to develop a range of objects which might be used in different ways. That these may be used in combinations is certainly an interesting idea which would fit in with my desire to engage people in a playful way. I’ll make a note of that one, thanks for that! In terms of permanence/transience I think that contrast raises interesting questions in relation to the concepts of place/space where a permanent trace would more discuss concepts of place making, however I am also interested in referencing shared spaces where it might be more appropriate to keep it temporary in reflection of environmental palimpsest and also opening up the potential for others to intervene afterwards. It would be interesting for example to collect images of a range of interventions in the same place, yet at the same time perhaps these needn’t be mutually exclusive… That last one is a bit of a non-answer. Perhaps I will explore examples of both…