tim wright: digital writer

Playful 09: a Kidmapper Progress Report

At Playful next week I’ll be talking about RL Stevenson’s classic adventure novel ‘Kidnapped’ and the various ways I’ve been playing around with it over the last six months or so.

As mentioned on the Kidmapped blog, several opportunities have arisen out of trudging across the Highlands. One is the idea of developing Kidmapped as a format for a series of crossplatform documentaries about several different books, each of them mappable and walkable in their own way. Here’s a sample of some the maps I’ve dug up so far:

                

A slightly more space-age idea was indicated by Jo Flintham’s fab mashup of my trip (see how proactive and smart followers and friends can be?), suggesting, as it does, a mobile app that could provide location-specific material for anyone interested in undertaking a literary walk. Better still would be if you could geotag your own tweets, pics, blog posts etc and use them to create a print-your-own booklet – so anyone can then become a Kidmapper if armed with the basic kit of a mobile, a camera and a map/book:

I’m already experimenting with ways of taking the digital content generated on my walk and placing it automatically into templated pages; thus – hey presto – you should be able generate your own personalised booklet or bind-in:

And finally I’m already thinking how I might return to the Kidnapped Trail next year with something bigger and better. I still dream of gathering a merry band of travellers and, every day, organising relevant games, talks and conferences along the way in pubs and local village halls and even out in the open air (weather permitting). It would be like an extended itinerant arts festival & conference that anyone could join either online or out in the wild - sponsored, of course, by Famous Grouse ;-)

It’s unlikely I’ll have the time or the opportunity to play around in all these areas at once. (I do have a home to go to and children to feed, no, honestly). So a choice has to be made. For 2010 should it be Kidmapped again or all-round Bookmapping? What do you think? If you’re coming to Playful, do please help me make up my mind.

Kidmapped!

So despite everything, I have started walking the Kidnapped Trail. Here is the first post from my Kidmapped blog that explains what I'm up to. Do let me know what you think, or better still, get up here. It's lovely!

cf http://www.timwright.typepad.com/kidmapper

'Kidnapped' is a fantastically exciting book. The story of David Balfour running for his life across the Highlands, sometimes accompanied by tough and rebellious Alan, sometimes pursued by the English army, seemed so visceral and exciting to me that I wanted to try it for myself. 

So that is exactly what I am doing.

From 30th June to 25th August, I'll be following a route across Scotland from the south western tip of Mull to the outskirts of Edinburgh, as charted in Chapters 14–27 of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Kidnapped’.

From this blog you'll be able to read and discuss the book itself, listen to extracts being read out in the places the book describes and keep in touch about where I am each day.Perhaps there's something you'd like me to do or think about whilst I'm walking. Perhaps you'd like me to visit specific sites and film them for you. Or better still, perhaps you'd like to come out here and join me for a walk, add your own responses to being on the Kidnapped Trail and have an adventure of your very own.

Hauntology

Rather late in the day I have recorded my version of the sound files that accompany Jo Flintham's Hauntology piece.

You can help develop the story by adding to the Flickr photo sequence. And I'm looking forward to seeing the photo-table-casket installation piece later this week.

but he was dead by may.mp3
but if the suit fits.mp3
forever on display.mp3    
forever on your table.mp3
he should have said shoe.mp3
here with her secret love.mp3
hidden away.mp3
him in french clay.mp3
his splattered brains.mp3
i can hear her whisper.mp3
i caught them in the hay.mp3
i do the job.mp3
i felt like a thief.mp3
i liked to ride horses.mp3
i wasnt born to be this way.mp3
instead i took the job.mp3
is that you michael.mp3
little bits of Tony lay.mp3
lived to fight another day.mp3
me out on display.mp3    
michael go away.mp3
my wife would say.mp3    
not my name she says.mp3
oh aye still here oh aye.mp3
or years ago.mp3
she keeps the photo in a casket.mp3
she kneels and prays.mp3
she loved him more than me.mp3
smart in my suit.mp3
so she was mine for 50 years.mp3
sometimes whisper back.mp3
somewhere in france.mp3
stay on parade.mp3
to her dismay.mp3
tony deep in her dark heart.mp3

Go Norway!

It was my birthday yesterday and Paul St George left a message on my Facebook page: “Happy Birthday Tim. Go Norway!”

How strange to hear from him after all this time. Not that he has been entirely silent. Having discovered the joys of Twitter, Paul (as @telectroscope) has been regularly updating the nation about his subterranean adventures:

“Gomera – exploring the caves ... A tunnel in Bristol... Rafah’s tunnels?... Box, Wiltshire...I need tunnels!... We can get anywhere in 42 mins... Flood my tunnel... I like New Amsterdam and Old Amsterdam... more tunnels are being revealed every day... We all live on the second floor... “

And now ‘Go Norway!’. A reference to the Eurovisian Song Contest, certainly. But also perhaps another nudge, another clue from Paul about where to look next, about where to expect the next ‘surfacing’?

For those who aren’t up to speed about Paul they should know that he is a man who spends much of his time living on what he calls ‘the ground floor’, while the rest of us reside on floor 2.

What is he doing down there? Well, discovering tunnels obviously; no doubt with the intention of installing his Telectroscopes in locations around the world: those large Victorian devices which made their first appearance last year, and which allow people (second floor dwellers) separated by oceans and continents, to stand and wave and smile at each other, whatever the weather or time of day, as if we all lived on the same street and were simply acknowledging each other through a downstairs window or across the garden fence.

But also while he’s down there in the dark (and one has to presume it is quite dark) Paul must be living a very odd life and making all manner of strange discoveries. His existence and his busy-bee-like industry provoke so many questions, most of which Paul chooses to answer at an angle or somewhat gnomically, if he answers them at all.

How does he eat down there? ‘Plenty of honey,’ says he.

How do you travel? ‘Anywhere in 42 mins’

Where will you surface? ‘Two locations with the same name and a historical link’

How big is your tunnel? ‘What is grown-up for puddle?’

How do you manage to get Twitter to work from several hundred metres underground? ‘Twitter is the telegraph system of Web 2.0. http://bit.ly/Qmv3M

Why me, Paul?! Why me?! Why of all the people you could talk to do you bother me? [No answer.]

I am no relation, we have met only a handful of times and I have no particular interest in tunnels or tunnelling – or telectroscopy, even. And yet somehow Paul’s story has its hold over me.

As if it’s in my blood. As if in some part of my lizard brain there sits an ancient memory – of sons being sent out by their fathers to forage and make fortunes, of one boy crawling into a crack in the ground or burrowing into soft soil in search of something - buried treasure or gold or food. It’s the story of one boy stuck in the dark forever stumbling his way through a labyrinth of fissures Sméagol-like, sustaining himself by dipping his mouth in underground streams and scooping his hands into vast pools (puddles?) of sweet, sticky nectar (or honey, even?).

It is the myth of a man hiding himself under the mountain like a troll. You see now that Paul has drilled his way into my dreams. Who knows where or when he will choose to go next.

Go Norway!?

3 Blake Walks

The other SID project I have become involved with arose out of a conversation with the actor Toby Jones about Wiliam Blake’s many many references in his work to ‘feet’ and walking and being anchored to the earth, as well as Blake’s capacity to see angels and other ‘visions’ as he walked about town.

View Larger Map

I liked very much the idea of helping Toby to recreate or replay this idea of walking around town and unlocking ‘visions’ as he walked along a particular path. So I've already mapped out 3 Blake Walks for him, and started generating rather abstract media to put in his way.

Using geotags and smart mobile devices it should be possible to put *a lot* of media in Toby’s way as he walks – movies, sounds, images and texts; and it doesn't have to be media made within in the landscape, but could be 'alien' media that has then been attached to a specific location on one of the three online maps.

In this way we could all supply Toby with ‘visions’ as he walks – things to see and hear and read that I make sure Toby encounters at exactly the right time and place by playing or displaying them to him on an iphone or a 3G enabled mini notebook; or perhaps we can also leave some kind of paper/poster trail for him to pick up...

It’ll be Toby's task then to respond creatively to what happens to him on each of the 3 Blakewalks. Initially we think he will respond in writing, producing some form of text or book of his own. But since we will also be filming with Flip cameras and recording the walks in as many ways as possible, I sense that a rather beautiful psychogeographic multimedia performance piece could be another possible output.

For now, I am still plotting out the 3 Walks and generating my own media as I walk the paths just to find out how this feels and discover what it is possible logistically in terms of filming, snapping, writing, mapping and posting in real time out in the field.

It’s an incredibly stimulating experience that I am enjoying immensely. Already I've spewed out a couple of strange little muvees (using the Flip software) that have some interesting qualities. Here's the one from the first walk:

And here's the one from the second:

If you’re interested in coming on one of the walks, or more simply contributing a piece of media for Toby to encounter, just follow @L_O_S on Twitter for news or keep an eye on the blog at http://www.timwright.typepad.com/L_O_S.

Save the Tyger

As part of the rather lovely Songs of Imagination and Digitisation project, XPT is working with John Morgan to produce a website where we preserve an electronic version of Blake’s famous poem 'The Tyger'.

When I first got involved with the SID project, I was asked if I had a story to tell about my personal relationship with William Blake. I was instantly taken back to a very early school memory of having to write out 'The Tyger' neatly in my exercise book and draw a picture to go with it.

I still think of copying and drawing as a fundamental part writing thanks to that poem. Indeed, it’s Blake's production process that always draws me in: the engraving of his texts and drawing *backwards* on to soft metal plates, and then the associated danger of seeing his plates blunt and smudge and break, perhaps after as little as 50 impressions.

It makes the remaining original prints and pages that still exist in the world feel very personal, fragile, delicate and *endangered*. And it made me wonder what if we could make a digital version of 'The Tyger' that felt the same way? Each time we conjured it up on the screen we were in some way helping to wear it out?

At savethetyger.org we’re developing this concept. Each time you look at the poem it will degrade and die a little bit. The more people look at it, the more it will fade and distort until it entirely disappears.

 There will be, though, ways of saving the Tyger too. We’ll be making a direct plea to the public to copy and draw or ‘redesign’ key elements of the poem that we can use to refresh the work and combat the degrading process.

We’ll be looking, therefore, for Designers to contribute a new Title section, Writers to submit refreshed Text and Artists to draw us a new Tyger. Each time one of these three elements looks like it's about to disappear into nothingness, we’ll replace it with something you send in. In this way, the Tyger will live on, albeit that it will morph and ‘evolve’ over time based on your contributions.

We’re aleady taking submissions of Titles, Texts and Tygers, so feel free to send us something. Full details of how to join in are in the videos.

kidnappedtrail.com

I am really pleased to say that XPT Kidnapped is finally online.

It’s in a pretty basic form, simply outlining where we’re going, where we’ll be each day and explaining the various ways you might want to join in.

View Larger Map

For those who haven’t been following, the basic proposition is this:

From 30th June to 25th August 2009, Rob and Tim of XPT will be following a route across Scotland from the south western tip of Mull to the outskirts of Edinburgh, as charted in Chapters 14–27 of ‘Kidnapped’.

We aim to meet people from all walks of life who have something to say, or something to play or perform, that is relevant to the story of ‘Kidnapped’ and to the land we are travelling through. And we'll publish all our encounters and all your performances & contributions online as we go.

It could be just one word, or a whole chapter that inspires you, or perhaps there’s a big issue that arises out of the story that you really want us all to address. Whatever it is, we want to say it, play it, perform it or *re-play* it somewhere on the Kidnapped Trail.

You can contact us here and let us know exactly where on the route you’d like to join us—or, if you can’t make it up to Scotland, you can submit your contributions via the web site and we’ll read them out—or even perform them for you.

We promise to highlight all the stories and pictures you send us, and discuss all the issues you raise, even as we tramp along the Kidnapped Trail from day to day, marking out the flight of David Balfour and Alan Breck across the Highlands.

And when we finally arrive in Edinburgh on 25th August, we’ll have a party and then start work on a new version of the book itself—a re-printing of Stevenson’s story with a whole load of new photos, texts, performances and papers, generated by all of us as we moved through the landscape.

This year is very much a proof of concept or working prototype for something we’d like to ‘go large’ on next year (and the year after).

In a very strong sense, we want the trail to become 'open environment' where people each year can express themselves and contextualise their thinking about this fantastic story, both out in a landscape and online; by which I mean XPT Kidnapped can become a place where you  can play and talk, walk and create, learn and *have fun*.

So in 2009 the aim is:

1. to prove the journey can be done (we're not aware of anyone ever having completed the Kidnapped Trail in 'real' time)
2. to talk to and film people on the way, blogging and vlogging and generally documenting the whole experience online
3. to develop the basic software that will allow people online both to track our progress and post their own thoughts and contributions for us to take down into the landscape
4. to work how we might all end up making of a book that combines Stevenson's original text with the best of the content we generate along the way 

I know have a number of rather large production tasks ahead of me. Some I'm further down the line with than others - and all help welcome:

• confirm the basic logisitics of travel, accommodation, food – and alert as many people as possible who live and work en route about what we’re doing
• sort out the technology and kit we’ll need in order to generate and publish meaningful geolocated content from out in the field.
•  develop the online presence to support mapped submissions and creative input from anyone who wants to join in – as well as develop the means for people to adapt, annotate and generally play with Robert Louis Stevenson’s original text.
• seek out serious partnerships for possible funding, sponsorship and production resource
• persuade as many people as possible to join us out in the landscape and respond in some way to the story.

The XPT 10th birthday dream would be to use this project to meet up with all the talented, crunchy, interesting people Rob & I have encountered and/or worked with over the last ten years and see how each of them might respond creatively to reading a book and coming out into the wilds with us. So if you are reading this, don't just sit there, come and join us!

The more, the merrier.

XPT Kidnapped: a summary

Ok, this is getting clearer now (or perhaps you don't agree?). http://www.kidnappedtrail.com should go live soon. Get in touch if you'd like to come out and play:

ABOUT XPT KIDNAPPED

running away - losing your family - choosing sides - growing up – rebellion - being Scottish - being English - choosing your friends - living rough - getting home... 

These are just some of the things that Robert Louis Stevenson writes about in his classic novel ‘Kidnapped’. And these are just some of the things we’d like YOU to talk to us about as we take ‘Kidnapped’ for a walk, out into the landscape it describes.

THE MISSION
From 30th June to 25th August 2009, XPT will be following a route across Scotland from the south western tip of Mull to the outskirts of Edinburgh, as charted in Chapters 14 – 27 of ‘Kidnapped’.

As we travel, we want to meet as many people as possible who have something to say, or something to play or perform, that is relevant to the story and to the landscape. It could be just one word, or a whole chapter that inspires you, or perhaps there’s a big issue that arises out of the story that you really want us all to address.

Whatever you want to say, we want you to be able to say it, and locate it out in the place where the story is set.

HOW TO JOIN IN
You can contact us here and let us know exactly where on the route you’d like to join us – or, if you can’t make it up to Scotland, you can submit your contributions via the web site and we’ll read them out or perform them for you.

Use the Map and Itinerary sections to see where we’re going. We’ve put the relevant sections of the Book online so you can read it if you haven’t already. And then get in touch about where and when you’d like to put yourself in our way.

FOLLOW US ALL THE WAY
Whichever way you choose to join in, we promise to document the journey every step of the way, posting daily updates onto our online map.

We promise to highlight all the stories and pictures you send us, and discuss all the issues you raise, even as we tramp along the Kidnapped Trail from day to day, marking out the flight of David Balfour & Alan Breck across the Highlands.

RE-MIXING THE BOOK
And when we finally arrive in Edinburgh on 25th August, we’ll start work on a new version of the book itself – a re-printing of Stevenson’s story ‘mashed up’ with a whole load of photos, texts, performances and papers, generated by all of us as we moved through the landscape.

An updating of a classic book. A record of our extraordinary adventure. Your personal record of unique outdoor & online gathering. Pre-order you copy today.

Taking classic novels for a walk: mobile, located literature

Here's my two penn'orth for BookCamp tomorrow:

I'd like to use a project I'm developing around 'Kidnapped' as the focus for a discussion about how to bring classic literature to life for young wired kids by taking this stuff out into the landscapes described in the books.

Now that we have fairly cheap GPS tracking devices, digital mapping and simple ways of logging & filming as we go with Twitter+Flickr+YouTube, it should be possible to walk through the world as described in books and report back on how it feels, how the book matches up to reality, how the past matches up to the present etc.

And once we've generated all that located media (and hopefully got a bit of a response back from people watching us walk via the Web), there's the enticing possibility of mashing up classic texts (assuming they're out of copyright...) and producing rather lovely new versions of old classics - customised and personalised by a new generation of digital readers and then printed to order.

We've chosen Kidnapped as our source book, but I think if we get the model right it could be adapted to any novel where there is some kind of journey undertaken in a specific time-frame. What about Switzerland to the Orkneys using Frankenstein as your guide, or a Don Quixote walk across Spain?

Anyway, for now it's Kidnapped that obsesses me, and below is the various ways people might join in. If any aspect of this interests you - either the specifics of this project or the general principles of marrying old books to digital mobility and mapping, please do come and find me tomorrow.

TAKING A BOOK FOR A WALK

Inspired by Chapters 14-27 of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Kidnapped’ we want to walk the route that his characters appear to take from Mull to Edinburgh – in exactly the same time-frame as described in the book. We want as many people to come with us or meet us at some point along the way to share our love of this great book.

Wherever and whenever possible we’d also like people to stop and deliver some kind of creative response to a bit of the book – whether it be a talk on aspects of Scottishness, personal memories of running away or hanging out with rebels of various sorts, songs inspired by scenes in the book, a local history lesson, a re-enactment, a game we can all play... whatever you want really as long as the inspiration comes from the book.

AN OUTDOOR FESTIVAL

If possible, we’d like the whole walk to become an open air festival or casual conference with people  turning up to deliver performances and talks that have been inspired by something in Kidnapped – a word, a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter.

If we can secure funding we’d even like to commission artists, musicians, cultural commentators, historians, school and local Highlanders to contribute in whichever way they see fit. We’re putting together a map of the whole trail on Googlemaps at the moment. If there’s a particular time and place where you’d like to join us and deliver your contribution, please do get in touch.

AN ONLINE ADVENTURE

If you can’t meet us in person on the kidnapped trail you can always meet us online. We’ll probably be using www.kidnappedtrail.com and hope to go live with something very soon.

We want to make it really easy for you to pin your comments, your pictures, your videos onto our GoogleMap where we will promise to pick them up and replay/re-perform in the actual Kidnapped landscape. In this way, even if you can’t make it to Scotland, you can still be part of the action.

To inspire you into action we’re going to put the entire book online in a form that’ll make it easy to print out and read, to annotate, to comment upon, discuss and generally muck about with in any way you want.

As we travel along the trail we’ll also publish to the Web as much as possible, filming all the people we meet, reporting our position, snapping pics and blogging our way across the Highlands. We’ll even be reading out all the chapters of Kidnapped in the actual places it describes so that we all end up with a unique audiobook.

A GOOD READ

When we’ve finished (August 24th in Edinburgh) the aim will be to combine  your online words and pictures with our site-specific content generated during the walk, mix it with Stevenson’s original text, and produce  a fully customisable, personalised book.

This will be your chance to order a copy of Kidnapped that has your own favourite writings, performance, polemics and pictures in it, generated from our shared outdoor & online experience.  It’ll be your very own classic adventure book delivered to your door with you and your fellow Kidnapped contributors in it. A rattling good yarn and a memento of your personal involvement in the 2009 festival all under one cover.

Remember to bring it with you when you join us for the same walk next year in 2010!

 

Everything you ever wanted to know about Oldton (but were too bored to ask)

I'm really happy to see that a meeting in Norwich about digital writing, organised by New Writing Partnership, has been well documented on YouTube.

The talks by Naomi Alderman and Alison Norrington are particularly interesting.

For my own part I am relieved to see that my spiel about Oldton that I have been repeating over and over again at various conferences and seminars over the years has finally been filmed. This means that I never have to give it again - and you don't have to hear it (unless you want to).

Here's the summary points bit: