mailout sound education 25


FEATURE


What happens when we turn this experience around, so this becomes a structured educational process?


We asked ourselves, could mscape enable a knowledge transfer – learning process – through the generation of content?


Can creative response become pivotal in an understanding and engagement with landscape?


A key point was the potential for user generated, rather than didactic, content. In the case of Soundlines, the students were introduced to the landscape through stories, role-play, and a site visit. They then created new music in a day of workshops, which was recorded.


This music was processed as loops, and mapped by the artists to the landscape.


The final Soundline ‘compositions’ were created by each individual as they explored the landscape with hand held computers and headphones – in the pouring rain!


Strata were keen to get students out, being active, gaining a sense of place away from the restrictions of modern life.


We wanted them to engage with the environment, and through this engagement bring in families, friends. Parents at the community sharing event said ‘this makes me want to go back up there.... we haven’t been for years.’ Lots of interest was shown about old maps of the area: anecdotal stories about the place were being exchanged.


The DCSF identifies that in Early Years “.... outdoor activities are important for learning and development of a healthy personality. Outdoor experiences have a positive impact and help in shaping the character of a child.... The current fears among adults about increased levels of traffic and the perceived increase in the threat of child abduction have led to a shift in society’s attitudes towards children’s access to and use of the outdoors. A growing interest in media equipment, such as television, videos and computer games has also contributed to the creation of a society where many children live sedentary lives with few, if any, opportunities to access outdoor


spaces or benefit from being outside.”


We believe these issues continue into teenage years, with increasing worries about obesity and isolation from local environments. Strata Collective aim to bridge the gap between media and outdoor learning. Inviting children to use technology as a trigger for active, inspiring relationships with their locality.


In Soundlines the young people involved were encouraged to reflect on the histories and myths of Sand Point, on their own experiences of visiting the place, and to use these impressions in a music and percussion improvisation workshop with professional musicians. The music was recorded, post-produced, and mapped to the topography of the landscape, in the mscape software. The participants were then invited back to the Point, this time with PDA (hand-held computer) and headphones, to walk as an individual, exploring the landscape through the sounds they found – sounds they participated in the making of.


Soundlines has been a complex project, not least because of the many strands, age groups and communities involved, but also because any innovation is hard to convey before it has been completed. The Premiere was a key success in bringing all the strands together, celebrating the journey taken, and allowing participants to become guides to the guests who experienced the work on PDAs and headphones, Sand Point re-mapped to Worle School, by walking with the students in the school grounds. The website proved all we had hoped it would be – not just a gallery, but a tool for reflection for the individual, an interactive collection to explore a community of experiences, and a hub of the project that will advocate for this way of working with technology and the landscape (ancient and modern).


Now in the evaluation phase, we are looking at ways to take the project forward. A great success as a bridging activity for the primary and secondary students working together, one suggestion is to focus on this aspect. A key aim of the collective is to offer mentoring, peer- to-peer learning, young leadership and ‘trainee’ opportunities. Another


suggestion has been to place the project within the English curriculum (GCSE) with creative writing as an added strand weaving through the site visits, interpretation and technology. Also, the potential of the project as a placement opportunity for sixth form students. Strata are keen to re-use the technical systems prototyped for Soundlines, and to explore mediascape in landscape with dancers. Soundlines, whilst a complete project in itself, was also a working pilot for our sister project Sightlines, which follows the ancient journey of the ‘Mendip woman’ across the hilltop ridges of three counties in Wessex, engaging with communities along the way.


Soundlines is funded through the National Lottery by Awards for All and through the RIFE Investment Fund with Southwest Screen and the UK Film Council. Partners include Creative Media Diploma students from Worle Community School and Priory College; Locking Primary School (a feeder primary for Worle), North Somerset museum services, the Pervasive Media Studio and volunteers from eShed Bristol’s young documentary team who are producing a short film of the project. a


“I thought Sand Point was magical and I liked feeling free when we should have been stuck in a classroom working.”


“This has been an amazing opportunity for my daughter. She has really enjoyed being a part of it. It was great to be invited this evening having heard so much about it and not really understanding! A truly creative use of technology – well done to all of you.”


FACTFILE


W: www.stratacollective.org/soundlines W: www.eshed.net W: www.mobilebristol.com/flash.html W: www.mscapers.com


Jackie Calderwood is a media artist with over ten years experience as a professional facilitator and evaluator of youth and community arts projects in the South West of England. Jackie is currently a PhD student with the Institute of Creative Technologies, De Montfort University. Her practice-led research explores pervasive media and holistic user experience of the ambulant landscape.


E: jackie.calderwood@btopenworld.com W: www.jackiecalderwood.com


Jane Harwood is a freelance music leader, storyteller, creative thinker and performing musician, based in Somerset. Jane has extensive skills in creating opportunities for hard to reach groups and people with profound disabilities to participate in the arts. As a creative, her aim is to ‘include, empower and enable’. A project manager and administrator, Jane is a pro-active problem solver who always seeks the overview.


E: jane_harwood@hotmail.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40