Monday, October 30, 2006

ASSIGNMENT TWO
suggested time expenditure: 6 hours
As a group (three people) develop a locative media sound project to be presented in class on November 1.

Objectives:
• To allow you to support each other as a group in the development of a locative media audio-based project. You will share available resources (media tools, computers), provide encouragement and analyse each other’s work constructively.
• To provide a way for you to explore the concept of identity through comparing your sound observations to the observations of other members of your group and the class.
• To practice using two readily available mapping tools—platial and googlemaps--and identify pluses and minuses of these tools
• To explore differences between vernacular and traditional measures of location and to practice geotagging
• To explore the concept of what a sound-based neighbourhood narrative might be
• Develop best practices for documenting sound with media

Part 1. Individual work [[suggest you take one week to do this]] Each group member should provide an assets archive [[you will need to hand this 1, 2, 3 in to me via CD or email depending on file sizes]]. You will need to decide as a group what the minimum number of recorded sounds will be. This assets list should include:
• name of sound file
• the actual recorded sound: file format to be determined by group depending on sound resources
• location of sound: please provide (a) vernacular reference and (b) corresponding traditional location reference e.g. postcode or longitude/ latitude
• screenshot of saved sound locations mapped on google map: http://local.google.com/ [[You will need to create a google user account to save map locations. Later on we will pull this data into shareable maps. See http://www.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/]]
• create a palatial map of your sounds, videos and corresponding images if you have them. Don’t make this map public but we will all put each on as buddies www.platial.com

Part 2. Group work [[Suggest you take one week to prepare this as a group using the assets from Part 1.]] The group as a whole should present a locative sound work that includes location, media, narrative—this can be anything you choose. Your presentation should include an album cover and accompanying narrative/ script.

***I would like to video this and will provide video camera, but need volunteers to record***

Walking the Cabbage ...

In 2000, Han Bing began his first major interrogation of the meaning of ordinary practice and our proprietary relationships to the material world with his ongoing performance of "Walking the Cabbage." On streets all across China, from his home village to Tiananmen Square, from the Yunnanese minority village of Dali in China's Southwest, to the Westernized Bund in Shanghai, Han Bing walks his cabbage—the quintessential Chinese comfort food of common folk—on a leash, challenging dominant conceptions of normal, everyday practice, sparking contentious debates in the arts world, in society, and across the Internet, about the meaning of a young man walking a cabbage on a leash, and what this act says about the state of contemporary society.