[-empyre-] go this way

["chris caines" <chris@madeupstuff.com>]

Hello Empyreans


Perhaps I'll start with a brief description of the project I've done for
Networked in the 2004 show then labour the point by elucidating my
interest in "in situ" practice in relation to the piece.

"go this way" is a sort of walking hypertext, a series of linked stories
designed to be experienced on foot, mobile phone in hand in the
Melbourne CBD. It's made for phones that can pull web pages over gprs
which means the WindowsMobile, Nokia, Handspring and Sony phones that
have web browsers and some of the newer WAP 2.0 phones. You can read it
offline on pdas using the excellent Plucker to pull it into memory
(http://www.plkr.org/).

The project uses the convention of a fictional "society" that in the
manner of GPS mad geocachers annotates actual spaces with stories of
peak emotional experiences that occurred for them at these sites. There
are six of these memories posted in the work. I've tried to use the
confessional writing style and voice conventions of blog posts and the
iconography of the site echoes the hobo language of pictorial signs
developed during the 1930s depression so those "on the road" could
communicate with each other about opportunities or dangers in certain
locations.

The general effect the piece goes for is the immersive resonance I think
you can get reading a story about someone's experience whilst inhabiting
the exact location where that experience occurred. Currently ACMI
weren't able to secure any handsets for people to look at the work
before the show opened last week, so it's presently a bit invisible. You
can get an idea of it at http://madeupstuff.com/drg where it will pop up
in a window the same resolution as the phone screen and look pretty
similar. The rest of the pics on the page document the location of the
sites (via maps & photos) and the stickers that are put up around the
sites as guides for those looking for the locations. There is also a
trailer for the piece running on the ACMI public screens.

 

Chris