Take me by the hand: geo-located musical walks

Come and explore the campus with a unique musical soundwalk using software developed by Ben Mawson.

Walk the walk

Please come to the Hartley Lounge at any time from 10.00 onwards. (This is the room with soft seating at the back of Lattes, Staff Social Centre; the nearest entrance is by the Nuffield Theatre and Building 4 (Law)) You'll need to have some ID such as your staff or student card with you to borrow a handset.

After a briefing from Ben or his assistant, you are free to explore a wide area of campus painted with minutely constructed virtual sound composiitons, in dozens of overlapped and concentric circles.

Unusually for our Wellbeing activities, Ben advises that the experience can be better if you are exploring alone rather than in a group, although it's not mandatory!

Due to the nature of the event, there's no formal ticket allocation. If all handsets are in use when you arrive, you may need to wait for current users to return, Registering your interest will ensure you have priority for loan of a handset but cannot guarantee this at busy times.

Handsets are provided for loan within their own protective cases. You should ensure that you have suitable clothing and footwear for this activity, especially when leaving paved or gravelled areas (essential to the whole experience).

Two interactive, immersive sound art compositions have been specifically designed for and draped across the landscape of the campus.

Using a combination of GPS technology and a unique software for Android called “ noTours ”, visitors may spend as short or long a time as they wish exploring the constantly shifting sonic shapes of the landscape and virtual compositions placed there.

The music and sound effects have been constructed both to blend with and augment, distort and reflect certain aspects of the place’s own character: virtual reality used not as a replacement for a physical place but as an enhancement of our experience of the real world.

Visitors may spend as short or long a time as they wish, borrowing a soundwalk-ready handset. (Please bring ID such as your University staff/student card.)

Alternatively, Ben or his assistant will be happy to set your Android handset up with the software and sound walks for you to keep should you wish. Please note: noTours software is for the Android operating system only. It was designed and built by soundart-activist collective Escoitar.org, as a visionary, voluntary labour of love. Ben and a few other technologist explorers in the UK and Europe have collaborated with Escoitar over the past few years to build geo-located soundwalks of an incredibly wide range of types, in urban, industrial and rural locations.

The practice of using location-aware devices to situate sound and other media across open spaces originates in the US military’s public release of GPS technology in 2003. It is called “Locative media” and links to more information can be found on Ben’s blog at http://benjamin-mawson.blogspot.co.uk

Due to the informal and non-commercial nature of Escoitar’s work, there are currently no plans by the designersto implement the software on other platforms such as Windows, iOS, OSX, Linux or Blackberry.

Once again, unless you have your own Android device, please bring ID to borrow a handset.

Talk the talk

Ben will give a short talk about the background and concepts of geo-located walks. He will also explain how he worked with the developers of the Android app as part of his PhD research, in the Hartley Room at 12 noon.

Android-ready

If you wish, you make obtain a free download of the soundwalks to your Android device. Ask Ben and he or his assistant will be happy to provide the necessary software and files to allow you to visit the soundwalks any time you wish. (They are suspended permanently above the landscape, continually in inaudible performance, awaiting listeners with the secret key of a listening device to unlock them. Music You Can Walk Inside.