QFWL23_04a; Telematic Writing Experiment
Telematic Writing Experiment
In this event we explore the tensions between the virtual and physical as we attempt to write in ‘transitu’ through a communal walk around our respective localities. We hack the familiar zoom interface to become a compositional interface, improvising a real-time audio and visual collage from the spaces we move through, guiding a fictional world to emerge from these overlapping, glitchy and leaky digital streams. We reach for an experience of writing which is embodied and immersive, living in the relational space between us and the environments we inhabit. Our speculative fictions emerge through a collective process of punctuating, perforating and plotting unexpected intimacies between disparate worlds.
The session involves movement through your locale while practicing an awareness of the sights and sounds of your immediate environment, while also asking you to observe the virtual environments of those with whom you connected through zoom.
Instructions:
This is a participatory, experimental writing/performance event. For this event, you will need a mobile phone with access to Zoom (camera and microphone both working), a pair of headphones.
We will be walking through our respective cities but if mobility is limited, it is also possible to situate yourself outside in a more static state, emphasising your position in a public space.
1. Start by walking in silence - all mics unmuted (5 min)
2. In your own time, start to orally describe your surroundings, slowly starting to create small narrative speculations about those surroundings - what is their history, their future? Observe as if for the first time. (10 min)
3. Now we divide the group in half. Group A continues walking, while group B sits or stands in place. We begin to gamify this dynamic. The observers group (group B) will take turns describing a view from group A. Once you have described a view, switch roles with that person - if you were still and describing, you are now moving and silent. We continue this role-reversal process for (15 min)
4. After we have each gone around several times in a casual pace of describing an observing, we find a comfortable place to sit. Mics open, we allow the local ambience of the space fill our session. (5 min)
5. In your own time, start mimicing the sounds you hear in yours and others’ environments. Start to play with the muting of of your microphone as a means to control the pace and volume others are receiving. (5 min)
6. Through these distorted echos of live sounds, we begin creating new material - newly imagined sounds and environments through our collective sound-making. Let’s now imagine and vocally share with the group what some possible futures would look like, inspired by the sounds and visuals we are creating. (5 min)
7. Open format: Using all of the different types of engagement we have encountered in our session so far, our remaining time is open for you to participate however you feel. (10 min)
28 April, 2023
online / your city