A community-based project about places in Gothenburg defined through audio stories and located with the use of GPS technologies.

Common public sources of geographic information form an invisible though highly functional overlay to the way in which urban citizens apprehend and relate to their cities. Beneath the surface of this efficiency-oriented cultural layer are a great many diverse yet often private personal experiences of place and localized histories. New visitors to the city experience very little personal site history, whereas children can’t help but imbue every place in their daily routines with special creative meanings. Residents of the city each their own stored body of history and experience that bridge this gap between personal and public.

This project explores the private/public nature of place histories and contrasts the artist’s experience as a city visitor with the local and personal experiences of students in Valand’s C:Art:Media program. In both cases, gallery visitors will be invited to ‘check out’ portable music players containing narratives that are meant to be heard at nearby city locations. A children’s version is also available. On the following pages visitors can download these narratives of place onto their own iPods.

Pavilion #10 Gallery: 21 August - 15 November 2007
In the gallery, this work is a floor-based mixed media installation making use of government issued high resolution satellite images, and official narratives of Gothenburg available in tourist pamphlets. These are visually complemented by large format digital prints, which are creative renderings based on the artist’s experiences of the city as a visitor. A section is devoted to children’s stories that define the city in their own ways. Sound work in the gallery includes an ambient montage of processed sounds derived from the local soundscape, and spatially arranged excerpts of spoken narratives.

Konstepidemin gallery: 27 October Ð 18 November 2007
Valand graduate students will be included in a second phase of the project in October. This work will be a selection of personally developed visual maps and sonic narratives of their walks through personal sites of significance.