e-merge Workshop Plans

Part of the e-merge project is a workshop with school students in Somerset. I wanted to include this, to bring the project back into the SouthWest region and to share it within an educational context. It will be interesting to see how the content transfers to a very different space, and whether the iconic images of central landscape would have any significance or value to young people who may or may not have visited the capital. I anticipate that it may be a good strating point to consider their own environment, and what features of it they would highlight to share with others. It will also be interesting to potentially map the new journeys and films, and/or create new content for the same structure of filmmaking mediascape.

This is the workshop outline sent to the school I hope to work with.

101 walks on the web

Saturday was lovely and sunny - and time for a leisurely walk around the park! After taking all the remaining logs off the ipaqs, checking them all for software and storage files, and packing up at the ICA, it was great to just go out for a walk and explore parts of the park that other walkers hadn't visited so much.

So the final 4 films of 101 walks on the web are from my walks. There's one walk I have yet to do - a walk avoiding the film regions, to see if I can make a film-less film with the film-making mediascape whilst walking in the park!! (My sense of subversion, pushing the boundaries... or simply bending the rules!) Anyway, that's for next time...

There's lots more documentation, video interviews, and more on the ideas behind the mediascape that I'd like to add to this blog.. so do come back and visit after the festival!

Oh, and if you tried the mediascape (or just watched films on the web), please take a couple of minutes to answer the survey about your experiences, thanks! (You could even win a copy of the limited edition print!)

Thanks to everyone who helped, took part, and told friends...

And watch this space for news of our plans for an e-merge day in the Park in late spring/early summer.

news from BEV

Harriet's video reports are up on the BEV blog - read and watch more about the mscape workshop and e-merge walkers (with me explaining it to them!)

walks & films go live!

The walks and films from Friday, Saturday and Sunday are now live on the website!

Here's the opening scene and trace of the walk by the ladies pictured below.
So, what's the connection with this image - any guesses to what's being planted, why, and how it relates to the park?....

Wo-manning the event

I had to pop back to Somerset & Bristol for a day, missing a couple of sessions. So time to set out a brief for the BEV volunteers wo-manning the table & equipment, who have been great. Over the weekend it was essential for me to be going out with walkers, making sure they were happy with the equipment and seeing how they (and the technology) behaved with e-merge - and therefore what information people need to be given when they first come to the event.

This was the emergent brief...

mscape workshop at Birds Eye View

Yesterday about 22 people, all new to mediascapes, came along to Constance's mscape workshop at the festival. One woman I recognised from e-merge the day before, who took lots of notes and seemed very interested to make her own mediascapes. It was great to have people from different backgrounds there - filmmakers, music composers, directors, editors... And interesting for me to sit in on the workshop and see people go through a rapid learning curve with fun, total engagement and innovation in just 2 hours!

After a great introduction from Constance, and an experience of a basic mscape outside the ICA, I showed a bit of the 'behind the scenes' workings of e-merge.

Harriet's got some video interviews that should be up on the BEV blog shortly, and Constance has written a post on the PMStudio blog too.

inside and out, Sunday

The BEV info stand at the ICA box office (spot the e-merge poster in the background!). It's near the cinema entrances, which is difficult when there's a huge queue waiting to go in (as for the premiere of wonderful The Time of Their Lives today - with Wiltshire guests!); but also great to catch people who've come out after other films - like the lovely ladies below!

Online survey

Everyone who asked to be emailed with their unique walk numbers from the website was asked to complete an online survey, with links from the website feedback page too.

Here are the questions:

1. Have you tried the e-merge mediascape?

2. How did you hear about e-merge?

3. Have you experienced a mediascape before e-merge?

4. Would you describe e-merge as any of the following?

Film; Game; Tour; Walk; Mobile media; Pervasive media; Art; Narrative

5. Did you encounter difficulties with the ipaq/ technology?

6. How did the mediascape alter your experience of the park?

7. Have you watched any of the e-merge walks-films on the website?

8. Would you prefer to watch your film?

In the park; Anywhere; On the website; In the gallery (ICA); Other

9. Please rate the project / your experience:

Very poor; Poor; Average; Good; Very good; Other

10. Please add any other comments, feedback, development suggestions.

Enter your e-mail address if you would like a reply, and for a chance to win a limited edition (1/10) e-merge print.

Thankyou!

How was your walk?

The mediascape goes live today...
add comments here to tell us how you got on, what you thought of e-merge, how you heard about it, development ideas and all your feedback!

e-merge live all week

creativite consultation & synchronicities...

Today was fun - I went to visit 2nd year digital media students who are making interpretation for a local museum. They've already filmed some beautiful footage of the Wiltshire landscape - Stonehenge, Avebury in the snow - as well as using images of artefacts and other info on finds from our rich heritage.

And we got onto talking about mediascapes as a tool to take the content back out into the location... bluetooth downloads, podcasts & all sorts of fun ideas. (Sounds a familiar connection...)

Afterwards I went to the Wiltshire Community Arts Network meeting in Devizes, to get the latest on the changes to Unitary authority, and what that means for the arts. I spoke about thevery successful Dads Matter Too film and media arts project, as one of several examples of the arts in Wiltshire. The host for the evening told us about a great film showing this Sunday by a Wiltshire colleague at the ICA for Birds Eye View.... small world!!

for the walls...

Part of the funding from the Arts Council covers my design & printing of the postcards and some large format print - to entice people new to mscape to have a go!

The poster's to put up in the ICA during e-merge sessions and encourage new audiences to book out an ipaq and try the walks.

sneaking a peep

at film playback for the website... work in progress.


Tricky stuff, as there's a lot of possible video clips that the film could comprise, in any sequence; plus long audio tracks that form the soundtrack - but don't start from the beginning.

... and that's after getting all the information about the walks out of the mediascape!

I'm glad I'm not the one making it...... ...thanks Ben!

Tracing the Park

'Tests and traces' was yesterday's theme in the park... look out for some video snippets of the first e-merge walkers at http://www.e-merge-walks.com/ when the festival starts. It was great to see the images playing in the location they're made for, and some useful feedback from the Zeph & Alex, thanks.




Pretty quickly the walks were up on a test-site on the web (with wifi & hot chocolate at the ICA cafe), so thankyou to Ben who is busy on the web side of the film-making, right now!

The Royal Parks have kindly agreed to use of their illustrated map in e-merge, so the first task was to walk around the park marking where I was on the map at various points, so mscape could turn the image into a 'real' map.. clever stuff.. 50 points later, and there's a bit of give, but pretty accurate for the central area of the park, so walkers will be able to view their journey on the map if they want to.

Then checking precise location of 'no-go' areas (like the new dredging site, and the park police station) so that the content regions will be in just the right places.

Interesting observation: mscape logs a trace for every map in the mediascape, so as I had Bristol still in there from Friday, as well as the illustrated map I was testing out, it recorded 3 traces...

creating a 5.5mb file for a 95 minute walk, and a trace overlay that made me gasp for a moment!!

Fortunately it was all salvageable with a few tweaks in excel (thanks for the tips, Zeph!) - so my legs didn't ache in vain!