Tag: research creation

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Port Hope Soundscapes

Port Hope Soundscapes is a project by Critical Mass: A Centre for Contemporary Art



The Hamilton Perambulatory Unit was commissioned by Critical Mass to create and develop immersive soundscape experiences played through a GPS-guided walking app in Port Hope. 

The text on this map represents the 22 resulting soundscapes, produced through conversations with over two dozen Port Hopians of all ages. The soundscapes are collaged from of snippets of conversation, site field recordings and found sounds.  Strata-Walking Port Hope provides a glimpse into the memories, stories, histories, and sonic environments of Port Hope.

Below is a sampling of some of the soundscapes.

Map/App Interface design and soundscape editing
by T.Ng-Chan
Drawings by Donna Akrey



Bandshell

In the park downtown is a bandshell, where Port Hopians gather in the summer to listen to music and play.



Main Street

Every town has a Main Street. 



Factory

Some stories about the Factory…

This project was made possible with funding from Ontario Trillium Foundation. 

Critical Mass: A Centre for Contemporary Art brings contemporary art to our community for all to experience because we believe art stirs our feelings and challenges how we see the world and our place within it. Their mission for the 2020 Port Hope Soundscapes project is to provide socially-engaged sound artists with an opportunity to play an active role in our community — creating art experiences that will help shape the cultural vibrancy of Port Hope.
http://criticalmassart.com/soundscape-project-overview/

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Ongoing Project: Word Walks

“WORD WALKs” is an initiative from HPU that anyone can do. As you meander however through the city, take photos of words that catch your eye/mind. Arrange them into a poster—a slideshow—a story—by colour—by meaning….as a collage—whatever you like. Send it to us and we’ll post it here…video, pdf, jpg, gif, film…whatever digital means you like. I have been making Haiku (as is my way) which is poetry arranged in syllables—first line 5 syllables, 2nd 7 syllables and the final 5 again (5, 7, 5).

“WORD WORKs” is the first public invite for work you can do solo. We will be doing more of these in time. Join in whenever you like.

Thanks
Donna Akrey, HPU

wordwalk-haiku from Hamilton Perambulatory Unit on Vimeo.

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stratawalks walks

Zoom of Doom

A Sense of Impending Doom: A Strata-walk for Turbulent times

The last few months of social distancing and general uncertainty about the future have generated a new appreciation for collectivity, closeness, and community. As we are separated from each other and travelling is no longer a viable option, how can we find ways to share and connect through a sense of beingness, while remaining in the safety of our own homes?

The Art & Cartography Commission of the International Cartographic Society, in partnership with the Hamilton Perambulatory Unit, presented an online “walkshop” in July 2020, as part of the conference Drifting Bodies/Fluent Spaces. The event investigated the act of mapping and situating ourselves, confronting our anxieties, as well as tuning in to what brings us comfort in our own space. The group of 30 participants, located all over the world, connected and sensed each other in unique ways through a series of analog mapping exercises that took place in the virtual space of Zoom. Using simple tools in their vicinity, such as a piece of paper, a camera, and a marker, the participants captured their bodies in space, the sky above their heads, as well as their relationships and emotions to their environment.

Visit the website to view the traces and outcomes of the workshop: https://impendingdoomwalk.wordpress.com/
​
​Watch the video documentation of the full workshop, featuring various perspectives – from the bird’s-eye view of the zoom grid to the close-ups of the personal and intimate moments.

A Sense of Impending Doom: A Strata-Walk for Turbulent Times from Taien Ng-Chan on Vimeo.

Want to participate?

It’s not too late and we hope that the archive will keep growing! Discover new and unique ways to experience mapping the space that surrounds you by following the set of exercises listed on the “Outcomes” page. Send your emotional and sensorial Strata-Map to hamiltonperambulatoryunit@gmail.com.

​Drifting bodies/ fluent spaces is an international meeting/conference on walking arts in relation to the liquid bodies that cross the landscape. Focusing on intermedia and embodied practices, the project enables a site-specific creation-research laboratory about the relations between walks and dérives, sounds and silences, void and occupied places, digital and bodily spaces, and their walking narrations and translations. https://walk.lab2pt.net/

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stratawalks walks

Workers Arts & Heritage Centre

Presented as part of the artist-projects/conference Art & Social Strata March 24, 2018 at the Workers Arts & Heritage Centre (51 Stuart St, Hamilton).

This public walk and talk takes the area around the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre (WAHC), particularly the newly built West Harbour GO Station, and analyzes the social strata that affects this particular place and space. Strata-Walk (WAHC Version) aims to provide participants with strata-mapping skills in order to highlight the different layers of place that make up Hamilton’s fast-changing downtown core.

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stratawalks walks

Victoria Street/Avenue

Strata-Walk: Victoria Street/Avenue

The HPU led a stratigraphic walk to map the different layers of meanings, stories, and systems that make up a place. With the help of a list of prompts, the HPU explored the urban landscape in three different cities, on three different continents! It took place in Sydney, Australia (where HPU member Sarah Truman led with members of WalkingLab), Windsor (with HPUers Donna Akrey and Taien Ng-Chan as part of In/terminus Research Collective’s Stories of the City exhibition opening), and London, England (with composer David Ben Shannon). Each group collectively mapped the “strata” of that street on that date.

Victoria Avenue (Windsor)

In Windsor, it was a very wet walk, full of weather, with heavy clumps of sleety-snow falling onto our attempts at mapping en route. We focused instead on note taking and chatting about the street and about the particulars of Windsor culture. For instance, many of the street names are French, pointing to the old city roots as a French settlement, but locals have anglicized the pronounciations (for example, Pierre Street is pronounced “Piry”). The US-Canada border is, by some strange twist of geography, north of our location. One participant decided to map the responses of strangers when asked to tell their favourite story. The group reached our destination towards the end of Victoria and University Streets and decamped to a nearby pub to finish our maps over some pints. Many thanks to In/terminus and to all those hearty souls who bravely came out for this wet and chilly walk!

Victoria Street (London) Strata-maps

Victoria Street (Sydney) Strata-maps

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KM2 March Walks

Dates: March 1, March 8, March 15, March 22, 2014
Location: Hamilton Artists Inc. 155 James Street North, Hamilton, ON

The HPU’s winter project 2014 was entitled Km2, and consisted of 3 different directed walks within a square kilometre of Hamilton’s downtown. Each week’s event began with an artist talk by the walk leader, who showed some of her work as well as introduced the themes and objectives of the walk.

March 1: Map Voice Film Poem (led by Taien Ng-Chan)
Poet Ezra Pound observed that “In the city the visual impressions succeed each other, overlap, overcross, they are cinematographic.” The urban experience of unrelentless stimuli was what, for philosopher Walter Benjamin, created the need for cinema. Map Voice Film Poem explored the city through the microcinema of videos and stories. Participants were invited to map the city through the digital image. The final video was edited from the contributions of participants.

HPU Map Voice Film Poem from Hamilton Perambulatory Unit on Vimeo.

March 15: Search Gather Research Make (led by Donna Akrey)
Search Gather Research Make focused on the visual arts and how to forage the city for ideas to realize as art works. Participants were offered some directives and then embarked on a walk within the KM2; the participants gathered found materials/found ideas to use as art-making supplies or inspiration for new works. 

March 8: Flânerie Collect Contemplate Write (led by Sarah E. Truman)
Historically, the flâneurs were “men of leisure” who ambled through urban streets and observed, mused and wrote about the cityscape. In week 2’s Flânerie Collect Contemplate Write, participants strolled within the KM2 as modern day flâneurs (leisurely if only for an hour, and any gender, not just male!) and composed written works inspired through the acts of walking and sensory exploration of the city’s core.

March 22: Final get together share session (Hamilton Artists Inc.)
The works we made were exhibited to the public and other artists/creators in a final meeting

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Mall Walk