Notes for Walking the space in between time: media art and augmented landscapes

Symposium:


Session Title:
  • Creator Sessions

Presentation Title:
  • Notes for Walking the space in between time: media art and augmented landscapes

Presenter(s):


Abstract:

  • In a pervasive media culture featuring connectivity and content available at every step, can augmented spaces and location based media offer the potential for fresh experiences and engagement with the physical environment? In this creator session, Megan Heyward will discuss Notes for Walking, a media artwork staged at Middle Head National Park and Mosman Art Gallery, Sydney from January 5-27, 2013 as part of the Sydney Festival 2013. Developed in association with Mosman Art Gallery, UTS and the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Notes for Walking allows visitors with smartphones to download an app and discover a set of thirteen short video ‘notes’ that are tagged to locations at Middle Head, a heritage site containing decommissioned naval forts in a harbourside landscape of sandstone tunnels, bushland, cliffs and abandoned lookout posts. The project brings together Megan Heyward’s ongoing research into locative media, spatial narrative, augmented spaces and landscape practices. The project works deeply with elements of landscape and is layered to acknowledge the contentious histories of the site. The video notes involve site-specific video and audio, including hydrophonic and ELF recordings of Middle Head, merged with short textual sequences that encourage audience engagement with the area. The gallery installation integrates social media photos and responses as people explore the site and experience Notes for Walking. In this session, Heyward and sound designer Michael Finucan will share key elements of the work, and discuss technical and creative issues including the complexities of delivering video and audio contents via smartphone. The session could possibly be presented on site at Middle Head, so that ISEA2013 attendees can experience the work on location, otherwise in an atypical setting. More broadly, the session will explore challenges and paradoxes of augmented and locative technologies, and whether they can encourage new experiences of landscape and environment.

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