S.M.A.K. City Museum of Contemporary Art & Citadel Park Ghent.

An art educative project by the Milena principle/WIT (Geert Vermeire, Stefaan van Biesen, Margot Dieleman, Eric Windey) and Escoitar.org.

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 and Margot) 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.  translated by Geert Vermeire.

You can see a graphical report (in Flemish) in this pdf.

All this in collaboration with The Milena Principle and SMAK.

NoTours proposes an augmented aurality experience. In other words, you can add a new layer of reality to your place. You can leave messages, tell stories, create geolocated concerts or just share your thoughts. The team of noTours.org is looking forward to know your ideas and your possible uses. In fact we are artists and developers. Take a look at some of the sound walks we have made in the world.

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NoTours is a pioneer project by the collective Escoitar.org, that allows touring a place while living an augmented acoustic experience connected with the actual spaced visited and the rizhomatic situation of the territory involved. This project will use mobile devices based on open source code (Android) as well as GPS technologies (which provides the position of users) and 3D audio contents (binaural and ambisonics).

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 soundart works or other sound elements in relation with the concrete space where the walker is.

HOW DOES IT WORK? [Format]
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. It can be considered as an intervention in the perception of the urban space, for us understood as a stream of complex actions, as a performance and as an act of collective memory. Between fiction and reality, our focus is the intervention on those strange or familiar spaces and converting them into mutant spaces. Touring them under the effects sound will reveal a hidden city filled with personal stories and interferences. All this, using WIFI and GPS technologies that allow to know the actual position of the visitant as well as the real status of the city in as many layers is possible (temperature, pollution, traffic, news, number of visitants, etc). The use of 3D audio technologies will provide immerse audio experiences linked particular spaces and to the extracted data from the environment.

CONTEXT [Sound as a producer of sense]
Every place, as every inhabited space, is loaded with a meaning, with a “historical and relational identity” that has been made out of an individual or collective process of memory. It is the result of our listening acts. Each environment and moment are inexorably tied to concrete sounds that characterize, identify and individualize them from the acoustics of other spaces or contexts. The sound that surrounds us and the sounds that we produce while a conscious or unconscious act have become an interesting material relevant to the artistic creation, the anthropology, philosophy, architecture, urbanism, ecology, history, psychology… In this context the project NoTours proposes and strategy for assuming the sound complexity of a territory, for understanding how much the sound is informing us about a that place and for elaborating new ways of knowledge and expression for the ear, avoiding the silence and the usual frontality of the vision, always with the intention of creating new possible sensible cartographies of the place that surrounds us.

COORDINATION AND PRODUCTION
Escoitar.org

PROJECT TEAM
Enrique Tomás (Engineer and sound artist, Madrid/Rotterdam, Juan-Gil López (Musicologist and sound artist, Santiago de Compostela), Chiu Longina (Anthropologist and sound artist, Vigo), Horacio González (Artist and programer, Santiago de Compostela) and Berio Molina (Artist and programer, Lugo).