Madrid



Project: "In Hear, Out There".
Creators: Matt Green, Maria Prieto, Andrew Henley.
Collaboration: Artur Vidal, Horacio González, Luis Ayuso, Carlos Panero.
Website: 195.53.62.237/inhearoutthere/
Curatorship: Inclusiva-net, www.inclusiva-net.es
Institution: Medialab-Prado, www.medialab-prado.es

Locative audiovisualization is emerging as a new artistic engagement in city-making.

"In Hear, Out There" is an artistic project based on locative media technologies and distinct urban memories of Madrid. This project takes the district of AZCA as an uncompleted canvas. AZCA is a modern city within Madrid; in fact, it is the most contemporary Madrid.

We find the central area of this district enormously interesting to situate our project within, since it presents a deteriorated but at the same time sophisticated labyrinth of pedestrian paths through multilevel, multifunctional open spaces that are linked to major corporations as well as to the daily life of its surrounding residents.

Also, other no less important reason of our interest in this space is that AZCA was a modern commercial center which turned into a global financial hub, built as the modern heart of Madrid metropolis and led by distinct local politics and geopolitics for the European integration.

The central park of AZCA serves us as a space to create new urban experiences by transposing different audio-visual contents from different parts of Madrid. The ambition of this exploration is to get a new sense of urbanity through implementing that audiovisual material, which is determined with a twofold intention:

1. To inject intensive experiences to the citizens’ transience through the park;

2. To evoke certain urban memories, taking into account distinct unbuilt urban projects, which were designed in past decades with the aim of demonstrating the most modern, progressive, civic space in Spain.

We work on this space by creating three interactive urbanscapes based on those old projects: an opera theatre, a botanic garden, and a library. Three soundscapes related to specific imagescapes taken from different parts of Madrid. Each audio-based environment has a predominant audiovisual experience, which belongs to some of the most representative spaces in the city and Spain: the Teatro Real, the Real Jardín Botánico, and the Biblioteca Nacional. Sounds and images of those institutional sites are spatialized in AZCA’s central park in three differentiated rectangular areas.

The aim of this project is not only to trace unexpected and multi-sensorial soundscapes of those places in Madrid, but also to manage and redesign the spaces and emotions of this unperceived park.

This artistic work seeks to create an augmented experience of that urban space; to revitalize an open, green, public space for the city. Technologically, we realised this aim through the use of GPS and mobile technologies which intelligently deliver audio-visual content to an individual navigating through the site.

A PDA device can be booked out at the main desk at the Medialab-Prado. A participant will then be asked to walk around a mapped space within AZCA. They are to inhabit a new urban environment where structures and bounds are expressed through sound composition delivered through headphones. This audio develops according to the user position within the AZCA space. When within one of three mentioned rectangular areas the individual will also be presented with a series of images from each created site.

The aim of this project is to build an augmented urban environment. Its challenge is to bring a believable urbanized experience when wandering through that space. A user can expect to be able to walk around a virtual opera hearing the audience gather within the auditorium or enjoy the interval within the main bar. They will also be able to experience a musical performance within this space. Similarly, they will be able to fully navigate through a virtual library and a botanic garden.

We have created a new map of Madrid through the process of our project, by posting In Hear, Out There’s audiovisual architectures, as well as specific concepts listed in our BLOG. In the Google map above, visitors can get up-dated information about our actual and theoretical transposition of audiovisual contents in Madrid by clicking on our pins. With this platform we pretend to challenge our collaborative spatial interventions and thoughts by inviting visitors to upload their sounds and images with their comments from our BLOG.

As a final remark, we would like this project to be perceived as a “locative art installation” intimately linked to the idea of allowing its performance as an “evolutionary exhibition,” an exhibition that becomes an archive of itself by the interaction of the visitors and whose archiving let it be up-dated and ever interesting for public engagement. In this way, we aim to turn “In Hear, Out There: AZCA” into an unlimited montage of the contemporary city.

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You are invited to visit our locative art installation “In Hear, Out There” till May 18 at the central park of AZCA. This project situates a new understanding of urban space. Its performance consists of transposing audiovisual contents from different parts of Madrid to construct three “audiovisual architectures” within the central park of AZCA.

“In Hear, Out There” is an art locative installation; an interactive scaffolding anchored to the central space of AZCA. Thus, the visit to the installation requires taking a mobile device or PDA. It will geolocalize you as well as allow you perceiving distinct sonic and visual qualities superposing to each other and to the existing sounds and images of the site while you are wandering within apparently diffuse-limit soundscapes.

You can also ask for the PDA at Medialab-Prado (Plaza de las Letras, c / Alameda, 15, Madrid) where you will receive the instructions for the audiovisual navigation through AZCA. Likewise you can download the open source software we used in the project from Mediascape, as well as our file “In Hear, Out There: AZCA” in our website, and upload it in your mobile device or PDA.

The exhibition is scheduled as follows: Tuesday-Friday, 10am-8pm; Saturday, 11am-8pm; and Sunday, 11am-3pm.