Task: Write a response to one of the projects shown in class on “Interactive Environments & Experience Design.” You can review these projects on OSS and select one to discuss.

 

Project: Scapes by Halsey Burgund

DESCRIPTION

Scapes is a sound art installation that allows participants to walk around the deCordova Museum’s sculpture park listening to a mixture of a musical composition and voice commentary from previous participants all filtered and influenced by physical location.

Participants make their own contributions to the piece using a smartphone app which allows them to tag any location in the park with their own recordings. These recordings are immediately available for everyone to hear as part of the evolving composition. As participants walk around the sculpture park, the individual path they follow creates their own personal version of the Scapes audio experience. The music is directly influenced by the landscape and is composed using custom algorithms which constantly generate new music; there are no repeated loops.

RESPONSE

Personally, I really like the concept of this work as it immerses viewers with the mixture of music and voices of other viewers, both from the past and present as well as the future. Music and sound itself is something I feel that can hit people’s heart when done right. In this case, the viewers are listening to it while walking around the park. I feel that this enhances the chances of them remembering this very work and their own experiences in it. Also, another aspect that I really loved was the choice of allowing the viewers to part not just by viewing but adding their own flavours into the artwork itself. I feel that it is a great way to help people see not just through their eyes but on a rather more emotional level their surroundings. They can also hear about the experiences of other people together with their own plus the music of the sculpture park. Even though there is no set narrative structure, all this little fragments pieces still pieces together into a narrative, be it liner or non-linear. Hence, I think this would be a great experience and would allow for memories that one would unconsciously keep because it reaches the viewers on a more personal level.

 

Featured image from here.