(no) Tour geolocated poetry
2010: a sound project S.M.A.K. Ghent Belgium.
2013: 'A Knocking Bird Sint-Niklaas Belgium.
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Ghent Belgium S.M.A.K. ⋈ the Milena principle / WIT on Heritage Day May 1, 2011.
On Heritage Day 2011 the Milena principle, Escoitar.org and S.M.A.K. the Museum of Contemporary Art of Ghent inaugurate an artistic and interactive sound walk for smart phones in the Citadel Park Ghent. In the park and the area around the museum you wander intuitively to and from seven key locations. On approaching these places you are surrounded by 3D soundscapes which transform the everyday environment on a surprising way.
The soundwalk invites you to watch to the city with your ears. It is not a regular walk, it is a (no)Tour. Nothing is what it appears to be. The walk will invite you to wander, to leave the usual paths, the area transforms through different soundscapes, depending on how and from where you are approaching.
The walking experience is a result of an educational art project with children in a cooperation between the Milena principle and Escoitar.org and is a continuation of the exhibition at S.M.A.K. “Music Stands Still” by Jorge Macchi which deals as well in a special way with sound and transformation of everyday places. For the
In S.M.A.K. you can upload the walk on May 1st from 10 am to 18 pm. For visitors without a smart phone there are devices available in the museum. On May 3d the creators of this walk with GPS technology and 3D sound will explain their project at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent.
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(no)Tour Gent [May 2011]. Project for S.M.A.K. Gent by Escoitar.org and the Milena principle as a result of a children´s workshop and as a dialogue with Jorge Macchi´s exhibition. CitadelPark of Gent. Recordings and compositions by WIT [ Stefaan van Biesen, Margot Dieleman and Eric Windey ] and Enrique Tomás. Texts by Geert Vermeire and Stefaan van Biesen.
Instructions for the sound walk
1. Download the app to your phone from http://at.escoitar.org/app/smak/noTours.apk When it is finished click on the notification on your Android bar and it will automatically install it.
2. Download the audio contents of the walk from http://at.escoitar.org/app/smak/smak.zip to your phone. You have to unzip and copy them to your Android phone SD Card or External Memory. For that use your favorite Android app (like Unzip) or just donwload the contents to a computer and later copy them to your phone´s card. All these contents (mp3 files) have to be copied to a folder named sdcard/notours/sound and if they are not exactly there the application will not work.
3. Start the application and enjoy the walk. If you have any question please contact us!
(no) Tour Workshop for children S.M.A.K.
Workshop S.M.A.K. City Museum of Contemporary Art & Citadel Park Ghent Belgium.
Stefaan van Biesen (the Milena principle/WIT) gathers around 10 am seven children, enjoying the sunshine, on the steps of the museum. It is clear that they already know each other and they day begins with happy talking around the tables in the hall, where the electronic material is displayed. On the program in the morning they get an introduction in the recording and editing of sounds, although only one computer is available. Because of this and the relatively short time – though the biggest distraction is especially because of each other – they were soon looking forward to make recordings and soundscapes. A short visit to the museum opens with the one-liner of guard Ronny: “Do you have a ticketjeee?”. Filip also shows us his musical tricks. Stefaans adds a beat on the words of Filip, animating the children. Then the children brainstorm individually. Ideas, words, sounds raise spontaneously, ready to use for their soundscape. Sound is connected with origami and soon small boats and small kites float through the entrance hall. When they are finished with playing they get a brief explanation of what will happen in the afternoon and lunch arrives (too early).
At 1:20 p.m. the children wait already, shouting that the artists are late.In fact two more artists [ Eric Windey and Margot Dieleman ] join the team and arrive together with Filip. The latter gives a creative tour of the exhibition of Macchi and Sailstorfer. Both exhibitions are very accessible for a child’s imagination and the creativity of the children is set in motion without effort. About forty-five minutes later the group is going to the park to search for sounds to be used in the end result: an appealing sound walk with soundscapes. First of all, the children let float some of their paper boats with words and ideas. The sound of the water and the ducks are recorded. It was asked to the children to bring their mobile phone to make recordings. Not every child had a phone, so they learned to listen and together with the others they make recordings. The first sound that fascinates them is the gasp of an old dog. And so everything started. The next appealing sound that reaches the ears of the children is the bell of the ice cream cart, all are tempted. Stefaan invites all the children for an ice cream. Afterwards the children continue their exploration of sounds and discover their own voice. Original melodies and rhythms are resonating through the afternoon. After the walk we return to the hall of the museum to listen to the recorded sounds. The children choose their favorite sounds and out of lack of time, the team will create soundscapes with this material later and integrate it in a sound walk. The children will return to listen to it on on Heritage Day on May 1st. Until next week!
Report : Nina Beghin, trainee of the Public Programme, S.M.A.K.
http://www.notours.org/archives/732
A Knocking Bird An urban Sound walk at Sint-Niklaas
[ An amplified Gesture ]
Knocking bird is an urban and e-culture project with an ecological engagement, organized by Cultuurcentrum Sint-Niklaas, WIT Urban Team (www.wit-urban.team) and noTours (www.notours.org) in collaboration with the Colour U, several international sound artists and environmental and ecological organizations. Curator: Geert Vermeire.
The pilot of this project happened between March and September 2013 and invited the residents and visitors of the city to a new urban experience with participation and with locative media.
Points of departure were a series of creative meetings with residents and artistic urban interventions by WIT Urban Team, next to an European event with fifteen residents from different European cities to explore nature in the city of Sint-Niklaas during a residency of a week. Their visit was been transformed in artistic results and in personal contributions about nature and city.
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Project 'Luistervinken'/ 'a knocking bird' explore the city of Sint-Niklaas with your ears. This project wants to experiment with social media, participation, sustainability and City experience. This project explains the link between art, nature and memory of the city. The artists of WIT Urban Team went in search of nature in the city. The artists listened to stories and experiences of the older residents. They examine the relationship between man and nature in the city. The findings are converted into sound bites and the GPS based system of noTours pins the sounds on places in the city. The result is a geolocated sound walk through the city. This allows visitors to explore the city and hear behind the facades in search of hidden nature, to the singing of birds, to the voices of the past. Do you want to experience and discover Sint-Niklaas in an alternative way? The sound walk is open to the public from June 15th to September 15th 2013. The audio guides are available at the Tourist Office or you can download an app on your smartphone. Knocking bird, writing project on the net.
[noTours, augmented aurality ] making sense of places
noTours is an open source and freeware project by Escoitar.org and the Milena priniple that allows editing a place with sounds. This means that you can attach sounds to a territory and that later, when you go physically to that place you can listen to them. The trick is using our noTours Android Application that detects your location (via GPS) and plays your audios exactly in the place where you decided. Our project makes it possible to listen to and to walk in spaces, experiencing an augmented acoustic reality. This alters the perception of space by superimposing new layers sounds to a territory, allowing the creation of parallel realities and connecting the real space with the collective memory of its inhabitants. noTours proposes a sound-walk through a defined territory, a historical and acoustical journey narrated by protagonists of the territory. noTours incorporate to this journey sound elements relative to the area where the visitant is located as well as sound art works or other sound elements in relation with the concrete space where the walker is.
Departing from workshops with residents and using collaborative creation processes this project aims to turn the process that allows some social expressions to be considered cultural heritage upside down, by offering society a tool to participate in the process. Inspired by the situationist ´dérive’ and evading from the city-panorama model, usually thought as an eminent visual, pan-optic and geometric model, delineated by urbanists and cartographers, it appears for us the necessity of elaborating new sensible itineraries that could question the urban lay out, usually considered as an univocal space. Using the extended format of touristic audio guides, understanding them as devices giving us information about spaces cataloged as relevant or for the public interest, this project would like to question their real value as well as the official discourses that contain. Our objective is the deconstruction of this old-framed format for designing a new one opened to the collective memory of the inhabitants and connected to the real time situation of the city involved. Between fiction and reality, our focus is the intervention on strange or familiar territories and converting them into mutant spaces. Touring them under the effects sound will reveal us a hidden city filled with personal stories and interferences.
Via participation of the residents and contributions of the European visitors the project will focus on an aural experience of the city and on the creation of a soundwalk with an alternative and creative tour of the city.
The soundscapes are loaded into an audioguide with gps and activated when you approach certain locations. Once you switch on the audioguide you only need to walk. You are surrounded by soundscapes which come and go according to your movement through the city.
A project by the Cultuurcentrum City Sint-Niklaas with support of Grundtvig, Lifelong Learning Programme, Education and Culture, European Union.
More information and full programme : Information : patricia.maes@sint-niklaas.be 00323 778 33 70 in partnership with Geert Vermeire, the Milena Principle and WIT Urban Team
geert.vermeire@themilena.com
0032483 121 133
www.themilena.com
http://www.dromenvandenatuurindestad.be/
https://www.facebook.com/dromenvandenatuur#!/theknockingbird
[ Map for the A Knocking Bird soundwalk in Sint-Niklaas Belgium ]
The noTours project in Sint-Niklaas was nominated by the EU as one of the finalists for the European Prize for Tourism and the Environment, rewarding original touristical initiatives bringing together the city and ecology (with the European meeting, alternative city walks in Sint-Niklaas by WIT urban team and a noTours-walk).
