Observations..

I asked Worle workshop participants what they'd particularly noticed about the London films, and what they had noticed or would want to highlight about Worle/school in the mediascape content they were about to make.

London:

Birds

I like the squirrel running through the trees

Trafulgar Square

London Eye

I liked the movement of people and cars amongst large monuments

Sped up sunrise, walking. Time manipulation.

I liked the horses and animals

Liked the moving people part

Birds

Dappled sunlight

Worle:

Buildings - different viewpoints

Grass

Different height levels

Friends and some lesson

I noticed how different the school feels with no children

Environment

Animals

D.T.

Trees

Worle was very flat

Show the school animals

Environment

Nothing except PE

Environment

Animals

Sports Facilities

e-merge reviewed

A review of e-merge by Alexander Starritt is published on the a-n website's Interface.

sandpit evening

e-merge was one of 8 events at the sandpit evening at the ICA last Wednesday.
It was a buzzing evening, and over 30 people took part in e-merge, with 62 new walks on the website (numbers 102-163).

Thanks to everyone that gave feedback - 64% of those commenting rated the overall experience of e-merge as good or excellent, and 76% said they'd consider playing e-merge again. Great! Good to hear too about the things that didn't work so well, and suggestions for improvement.

Just managed to squeeze in two short interviews - here's one, after dark, with a mystery walker...

Sarah Mosses helped me with ipaqs, forms etc throughout the evening. So I asked her how she'd found the evening - as co-composer of one of the music tracks, innovation programmer and commissioner from BEV ...

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.

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!

print

postcard design 1

samples

Two versions of the same clip - dusk at the west of the park.

Low quality then medium quality (although both then recompressed by blogger).

I'm editing in Final Cut, which then goes into flash as the mscape needs swfs and the web will need flvs. Size versus quality... or shorter edits!

change and archive

There will be visible changes in the park by the time the mediascape's completed..
As well as the budding spring, the lake's going through a big change - being drained and dredged for it's 20+yearly clean-out, as I discovered on my visit last week! How different will it look when people are walking with e-merge?...

Here's a previous change - in 1940 there was a suspenson bridge across the lake:


This is one of the archive images, as shown in the Royal Parks Historical Survey: St James Park by LUC, 1981. Thankyou to Land Use Consultants and to the Royal Parks for permission to use some of those images in e-merge. Look out for a few surprises when the first walks are made and first films go online...

Mapping & first traces

Here's the traces from parts of my walks whilst filming etc.

OpenStreetMap seems to give the best (gps-accurate) visuals for the Park (as below). There's quite an interesting mix of maps and images out there including aerial photo and road layout, street maps, showing different interpretations of the park. Royal Parks have kindly given permission for me to use their illustrated map of the park in the mediascape, so that may feature too...

There are 3 ways maps will be used in e-merge:

• as a maplib in mscape to create the mediascape
• for map display to the walker while they're e-merge-ing in the park
• on the e-merge walks website to show the routes of the walks with the films generated

St James' Park

View Larger Map

Filming in the park

Two days later, through rain, snow (!), wind and sun, day and night... 800+ photos and several hours of video later...

The music sounds great wandering around the park. I found I was focusing on different content when listening to the different tracks, so it'll be interesting to see how/if that's reflected in editing and in the walks themselves.

I've tested out a short version of Something More in the park, to check a few things like gps trace, playlist and log, pace etc, and have a good 'to-do' list ready to go...

Thanks to Niki and Graham at the Royal Parks for being so helpful and interested in the mediascape. I'm hoping to get the go-ahead to be able to include some images from an historical survey of the park, made 28 years ago, and full of interesting snippets, maps and snaps since it's origins in 1531. That may be the subject of a future post...

And thanks to Zeph & Mima for the usual overnight accomodation. And a fun night out at the Club Zigana Swedish Klezmer evening. Romanian sausages kept me from feeling cold or hungry all the next day! Bon apetit! Or rather - bună !

walks on the web

www.e-merge-walks.com is the newly registered domain for the films made by e-merge walks. - Not sure yet how they will appear or how the site will be constructed; the aim is to show a selection of walks made using the mediascape, with the time, date, an image of the gps trace (route of the walk through the park) and the resulting short film.
What I'm hoping is that people will revisit their film online, adding to the experience after the walk.
The films will become a celebration of the diversity of walkers and their interactions with the place and the technology.
The site might also include space to comment, or links to other online feedback or discussion.

Music for St James' Park : Trees/ Water / Paths

Jackie asked me to create music for the e-merge mscape and, now I've done it, to write about me - and explain the process.

I'm a musician  - guitar, bass, harp, flute : I play  with two bands, teach and lead workshops. What leads me on is engagement - the power of sound, and participation. So many ways to participate!

You can see what interests me at www.stratacollective.org

Site specific music, and music for mscape, really fires my imagination.

It was a journey in itself, finding the right way to record what I wanted to create for the e-merge walks. Firstly, I'm a country lass - so how to find a way in to an ordered urban landscape? History is a trigger - but the history of this small piece of place is layer upon layer upon layer. Dense and tangled.

I came to simple, single, visual things - three pieces which I've called trees, water, paths.

It seemed important to break with linear experience. I anticipate the end user to be swept up, inspired, locked in.

I chose to break from what would be the usual process of a constant rhythm (easier said than done) and mirror the experience of becoming engaged - stop : look : listen : turn around : wait awhile. Look up, look down. Reflect.

Maybe it's a city thing, the chance to be alone in proximity to others.