NAGC <bridgetown>whisperpost

bridgetown whisperpost | workshop

<bridgetown>whisperpost is an interactive audio installation in the streets of Bridgetown that was conceived by Barbadian artist, Joscelyn Gardner, for a new media workshop hosted by the National Art Gallery Committee in March 2005. Following her multi-media intervention into four galleries at the Barbados Museum, White Skin, Black Kin: “Speaking the Unspeakable”, in March 2004, Gardner was invited by the NAGC to create a workshop that would focus on the use of new media in artistic production. She proposed a community-based audio archival project that would commemorate the 375th anniversary of the founding of Bridgetown (2003) by probing the city’s forgotten spaces for stories / sounds that are often overlooked. During the one-week workshop, participants researched and recorded 18 individual sound works.

Workshop Participants:

The invitation to participate in this collaborative audio project was extended to visual artists, performers, writers, historians and visual arts students. The 18 workshop participants included Barbados’ Chief Archivist, Art Curators from the Barbados Museum and National Cultural Foundation, professional visual artists, students from the Fine Arts program at the Barbados Community College, a professional voice artist, and an archivist.

List of Workshop Participants:

soundscape artists & contributors

Natalie Atkins
Eric Belgrave
Allison Callender
Annalee Davis
Laila Degia
Ingrid Gall

Laura Lin Hutchinson
Rodney Ifill
Juliana Inniss
Judy Layne-Banks
Christine Matthews
Denyse Menard-Greenidge

Gail Pounder-Speede
Karen Proverbs
Ricardo Skeete
Lilian Sten-Nicholson
Malin Straker
Alberta Whittle

other participants

Addington Forde
Oneka Small
Glenn Brathwaite
Joyce Daniel
Christopher Burnett

Workshop Methodology:

During the first day of the workshop held at Queen’s Park Gallery in Bridgetown, Project Director, Joscelyn Gardner, introduced participants to both the creative and conceptual goals of the collaborative project as well as to ideas surrounding the use of sound in contemporary art. Particular attention was paid to the idea of sound as memory as it related to Gardner’s exhibition “White Skin, Black Kin: “Speaking the Unspeakable”. Participants also undertook a detailed analysis of Janet Cardiff’s “The Munster Walk”, discussed the creative use of digital wireless audio technology, and examined various websites with similar spatial annotation projects. In addition, the workshop looked at the planning and implementation necessary for installing an interactive project within the city. The second day, held at the Barbados Museum, introduced participants to various artists’ sound works, as well as to strategies for the sourcing and collection of sound data and researching of archival material. The afternoon session was spent on the Chamberlain Bridge in Bridgetown collecting sounds, test-driving the digital sound recorders, and examining how material collected might be used artistically to fulfill the goals of the project. During the following two days, workshop participants met at the Museum in the mornings and then set out in groups of 3-4 people to collect relevant aural data. Each participant selected a city location that interested them personally and set about creating individual soundscapes based on their personal responses to their chosen site. Research material was also made available at the Barbados Archives under the guidance of workshop participant and Chief Archivist, Christine Matthews.

On the final two days, material culled together by each participant was then mixed in the Gray Lizard sound studios by well known local musician and sound artist, Alan Sheppard, to produce the medley of individual sound pieces that can be found at each whisperpost. The end result is a collaborative sound art collection that imaginatively probes the present, past, and future of this pulsating Caribbean city.

Project Installation:

<bridgetown>whisperpost is being launched in the streets of Bridgetown in March 2007 along with a companion CD and website. During the period of this interactive sound installation, viewers will use personal cell phones to access the location-specific sound works. At each chosen city location, a <bridgetown>whisperpost with recognizable logo displays a telephone number that can be dialed to access the relevant sound work for that location. Using their own mobile phones, viewers / participants are able to dial the telephone number and spend a couple of minutes listening to one of the 18 different creative soundtracks inspired by the surroundings in which they stand. Maps of Bridgetown indicating the location of the various whisperposts are also provided so that viewers may make their way to each location on their own. After listening to the recording, listeners are asked to leave their own message at the sound of the beep.

In its CD and web version, the soundscapes created for <bridgetown>whisperpost are accessible by clicking on the sound icons on the map of Bridgetown. Click a node and listen to the soundpiece while viewing an image of the part of the city that inspired the work and reading about the person who created it.