This City’s Centre

A Digital Triptych for Exeter… and Cities Everywhere

Residency, Art Performance, Exeter (UK)

Software development, media performativity, projection mapping, mobile phones
2013

This City’s Centre was a 9-month-long project based on interviews with 40 city residents about the views from their windows. The outcomes of the project were formed into three digital artworks – an audiovisual narrative, an interactive walking experience, and a new media performance. Devised and realized with associate artists, college students, and participating publics, this dispersed, digital portrait of Exeter (UK) used a range of social and participatory art practices to gently probe the meeting points of public and private spaces of the city center. Throughout each part of the project, the city life was experienced and shared from new and surprising angles. The resulting artworks invite us all to rethink how daily life in urban spaces can shape, provoke, and define us.

It’s the scope and ambition of this project, the technical adventurousness, and the collaborative and participatory ethos embedded in its very being that makes it such a success. And just as the digital aspect is intrinsic to its narrative and structure, so is the sense of hope – the potential for change, for us to build the city we want, to be who we want to be.
EXEUNT MAGAZINE

This site-specific digital performance used specially designed streaming technologies to connect views of city centre streets from five Exeter homes, with the audience in the city centre venue. The local band The Big V accompanied the live action which mixed spoken words, movement, and audience interaction ‘to create a genuinely affecting performance event’ (Exeunt). To accomplish the technological demands of this performance, a media system was created in order to allow the transmission of multiple live video feeds from various geographic locations to the main performance space. Custom-built apps were developed to capture live video from the connected computers and to stream video information via a TCP/IP network protocol to the main software application that uses a matrix to mix the videos together according to the needs of the storyline. The final composition is projected in the venue using a multiscreen setup that has an implemented projection mapping system.

Moreover, Android phones are used by the performers as streaming devices that transmit live video directly into the main application (using this approach). The visual mix of all dispersed devices is captured and broadcasted online to every web-enabled device. The system has a built-in chat function for visitors and participants, which allows them to communicate during the performance, offering an improvisation trigger. This online text is re-projected within the physical space of the venue to further enhance the audience’s experience. Through this process a performance emerges, a storyline on urban life that is transformed into a mesh of sounds, lights, videos, acting, and improvisation, creating an unexpected fusion of dimensions using real and digital entities.

Watch a video of the performance here

Devised by Blind Ditch members Paula Crutchlow (director), John Drever (sound designer), Volkhardt Müller (scenography & videography), and Cat Radford (producer) from an original idea by Volkhardt Müller.

The work was manifested in collaboration with associate artists and contributors: Stavros Didakis, Carla Hayes, Lee Hodges, Lizzie Humber, Tom Matthews, Jane Mason, Natalie McGrath, Philibert Patricot, Jonnie Rowden, David Salas, Phil Smith, Katie Villa, Tony Walker, John Wylie. With many thanks to The Big V, Exeter College Students: Lauren Berry, Leah Burt, Hannah Curwen, Benjamin Commins, and the 40 Exeter residents who shared their views with us.

Funded by Arts Council England, Exeter City Council, and Arts & Culture at the University of Exeter.

Supported by RAMM, Exeter Phoenix, Unexpected Exeter, Exeter College, I-DAT at the University of Plymouth, Guildhall Shopping Centre, Princesshay.