Create alternative maps of “desire lines” in Detroit and KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa by converting GIS data into audio and visual interfaces for both the web and live performance.
Work with musicians and ethnomusicologists to convert data into sounds that reflect indigenous and historical music and sounds in both places. Incorporate voices and words from walking stories gathered during the project.
Create visual connections through printed output and projections. Can use images, pieces of images, graphic elements, artists notions - figure out what the visual vocabulary will be.
As participants in the Walking Project take walks along desire lines, they will carry GPS tracking devices that will transmit data to computers in each country, which will then send information to both sound and image-based programs that can be used by musicians, dj’s/vj’s and other performers.
During a live performance a dj and a vj in each location will create improvised performance with the sounds and images triggered by live GPS data that triggers the material. They will, effectively, be creating maps that connect newly "recorded" networks of desire lines from two (or more) sites. This can be integrated with the theatre piece or as a series of separate events in public spaces both indoors and out.
The process is layered:
• first the walkers gather information that hasn’t previously been mapped
• the information goes to a central database
• the database sends information via both the web and live performance sites to audio and visual interfaces that transform the information
• performers create music/soundscapes and images from the transformed information, effectively designing new maps of desire lines and new ways of networking people living 8700 miles apart
• the output from live performances will also be streamed across locations and woven together to create another new map
• the live output will be captured for storage in the database
• web users will be able to interact with the stored raw output, samples, and the woven map/performances to create their own maps
• database of maps and raw material can be used to develop interactive installations where people can walk in someone else's shoes, along desire lines thousands of miles away, and even add their own input to the data
By collecting data from walks in both countries, the project connects different communities and facilitates the creation of new ways to map and network - and new ways to create stories.
