Yes, I accompany him to places
Only dreamers know,
Where the shy hares show their faces,
Where the night rooks go;
Into old aisles where the past is all to him,
Close as his shade can do,
Always lacking the power to call to him,
Near as I reach thereto!
Joe Flintham and I have been thinking about haunted objects for a while now. Or rather we both like the idea of somehow stuffing digital sounds, images & stories into old analogue bric-a brac.
Joe puts it well in this pdf about his experiment with a photo frame, a chest of drawers and a casket:
“I combine everyday things – furniture, knick-knacks, antiques – with sensors and microchips, and am able to take the movements and actions of people in spaces and the way they interact with objects to generate digital interactive narratives.”
Since then we’ve been getting more ambitious about how this combination of digital story and old-but-smart object could be applied ‘out in the field’ rather than confined to a controlled gallery space. We’re now thinking of the possibilities for taking a small ‘haunted’ box for a walk (yes, it’s walking again, sorry) and I think I may have found the perfect landscape to walk through.
View Where The Night Rooks Go in a larger map
This map shows not only the place where Thomas Hardy was born and where he died, but also the place where his heart is buried (albeit a heart inside a cat inside a biscuit tin, allegedly).
The haunting element is that Hardy wrote a great deal of poetry in 1912-13 just after the death of his first wife; they are poems full of remorse, regret, haunting memories set into landscape and a beautiful ghostly presence just out of reach (Hardy’s second wife must have been thrilled).
Why do you make me leave the house
And think for a breath it is you I see
At the end of the alley of bending boughs
Where so often at dusk you used to be;
Till in darkening dankness
The yawning blankness
Of the perspective sickens me!
What might it be like to be the carrier of a ‘heart in a box’, an object that might release poetry and sound effects as you walked - and which allowed you to ‘charge’ it with your own emotions and memories and images, depending on what route you took, on where & when you chose to stop for a while – or even on where & when you chose to leave the box or pass it on to another walker/carrier?
Joe has now listed the different kinds of affordance that could be offered by a haunted ‘box’. I have mapped out some routes across the landscape that could be used to take a box from place to place, from cradle to grave.
I imagine us using recitations of 1912-13 poems as the core assets to be ‘unlocked’, as well as sourcing the sounds of his wife's (Emma) Cornwall that Hardy keeps referring to as he mourns in the Dorset landscape.
I see what you are doing: you are leading me on
To the spots we knew when we haunted here together,
The waterfall, above which the mist-bow shone
At the then fair hour in the then fair weather,
And the cave just under, with a voice still so hollow
That it seems to call out to me from forty years ago,
When you were all aglow,
And not the thin ghost that I now frailly follow!
What we need to do now is map out the different ways people might ‘play’ with this idea. Here’s some possible models:
- Walkers carry one box from a single start point to a single end point. Poetry, sounds and story released along the way with a possibility to record reactions & thoughts.
- Walkers carry one box stopping with it at various locations along various routes. The box releases assets according to how it is manipulated (and perhaps ‘charged’ via USB?) at each waypoint. Opportunities to record reactions and thoughts at various points.
- Walkers start with one box, swap it for another at a waypoint, carry the new box to a second waypoint, swap for a third box and so on along various routes. The choice of route and waypoint and sequence of boxes changes release of assets and recording options.
- Two or more walkers each take a box on different route to the same end point. The choices of route (and waypoint in terms of listening & recording?) alters each other’s final listening experience – i.e. one walker can ‘influence’ the other walker’s box attributes (both consciously & unconsciously).
- Walkers carry a box along a predefined route, appearing to give the walkers some means of communication with and/or control of a distant figure (an actor) walking another route. The box is perhaps housing the 'soul' of the distant 'ghost' and the walker has to both 'steer' and 'commune'.
- Walkers actually encounter actors with boxes at points along various routes, engage in a (forked?) dialogue and choose whether to carry a box on to the next encounter, swap boxes, refuse a box etc. A more complex branching narrative and/or game mechanic required here. (And potential cheese factor of street actors needs to be accounted for)
Although I rather like option 5 for its idea of spooky interaction at a distance, we probably should try and keep things simple. Essentially, we need to give the walker a feeling of intimacy with the box and pack the walk itself with poetry and emotion, seemingly embedded both in the carried object and in the landscape that is being passed through.
By tracking the walkers’ choices of route and encouraging recordings of their thoughts & feelings, it should be possible to ‘charge’ the box with a range of human emotions – to give the box a ‘heart’ and a chance to find its natural resting place.
Reminds me a little of ghostwire http://www.ghostwiregame.com/product
Sounded really interesting when it won the 2008 Nokia game summit, but then went a bit cheesey in the execution.
Sure your onto something spookily good.
Posted by: Mike Williams | March 07, 2011 at 10:39 PM
oooh ghostwire looks intriguing. Both Joe and I have realised of course that the 'box' could just as easily be a smartphone charged with an app. But there's something good about using an antique and seemingly analogue object, gutting it and stuffing it with lots of hidden tech. I think people would have a different relationship with something that seemed to come from a past world.
Agree about risk of cheese btw - esp if we try to introduce any kind of 'theatre'.
Maybe you should come out to Dorchester, Mike and do the walk with us in early April!
tx
Posted by: timw | March 07, 2011 at 10:50 PM
Just been talking with Joe about this...sounds stunning! Do you (both) know about the poetic inquiry conf at BU in Oct...it (this) needs to be there.
Posted by: Fbiley | March 29, 2011 at 12:52 PM