Output details

Urban Provocations 1: Chapel Street

A multimedia software playback system authored for the exhibition "Urban Provocations 1: Chapel Street", Ellis Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, 10–24 October, 2013

This project examined questions relating to the mapping of urban spaces and the reconstruction, through evidence gathered and the traces of earlier actions, of ‘lost’ worlds and personal narratives. The theoretical context included psycho-geographical narratives from literary sources including Calvino, and Foucault’s Heterotopia. The work set out to stimulate response in the context of the debate around current urban renewal in Salford.

The method consisted of examining the above questions through the visual recording of a single street in Salford, and the presentation of statistics taken from census, economic and crime data on Salford (sources variable; public domain). With these as ‘content’, combined with material from Allan Walker (image and text) and Steve Davismoon (audio), I authored an original software engine to randomise the playback of views along the street, always progressing east to west, through a branching and doubling structure, to create unique, looping, virtual heterotopic journeys through disjointed spaces along the route. Playback provides a different combination with each viewing (the variations of image sequence alone offer 2.1 million possible combinations).

The work was exhibited in the context of collaboration between UK and US institutions, building on earlier initiatives championed by Professor Martin Hall, (urban archaeologist; VC, University of Salford) and Lynn Zelevansky, (Director of Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh). Close similarities exist between Salford and the Braddock district of Pittsburgh, in post-industrial decline, and resulting social problems.

Featuring commentaries by Martin Hall, and Professor Huw Morris, the work was displayed in the Ellis Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. Accompanying presentations and symposia were held in situ leading to establishment of institutional research collaborations, future return exhibitions, and lectures in Salford by CMU staff. A further iteration of the print-based work was exhibited in Columbia College, Chicago, leading to agreements to develop institutional research collaboration there, also.