CBF CMVP continues in the legacy of Chatty Bench Project as it emphasizes the participatory creation of place-based digital stories towards community advocacy and social justice activism. It differs in that it moves away from the screen of the smartphone and superimposes these stories onto building facades as visual projections. In projecting these digital stories, it intended to continue in the vision of Chatty Bench Festival where “everyone’s story” is visible in the public space. The project aimed to tackle issues of social isolation experienced in the neighbourhood of Kelvin Grove by building providing the community with opportunity of creative digital making and placemaking to enhance the community spirit of KGUV. The project facilitated by artists Kavita Gonsalves and Kofi Oduro, Montreal-based creative coder, involved workshops where KGUV community members contribute digital media made generated via a smartphone about their experiences of living, working, and studying in Kelvin Grove. They were further invited to learn and contribute creative code where the digital stories were visually patterned and contorted (like those seen in music festivals) with open-source live-coding tool Hydra. CBF CMVP took place on 4thDecember 2021 as the finale event of the Chatty Bench Festival. In the creation of a collective digital immersive experience of KGUV (the place), community members came under the stars to break bread, have conversations, meet an old friend, and laugh over the silly, fun, and sad digital media under the night sky.
WHAT IS BEING MADE
A community media visual projection onto QUT Z2 building in the QUT CI Precinct.
Image reference:
“Adlights.” n.d. Accessed September 13, 2021. http://adlights.com.au/.
CONTRIBUTE TO THIS COLLABORATIVE DIGITAL ARTWORK
You have two ways of contributing to the project:
A. Digital Media Contribution (SIGN UP TO 6th NOV WORKSHOP):
You can contribute digital media (audio, video, images etc) made by you on your mobile phone about your experiences in Kelvin Grove Urban Village. The digital stories you create will be about your personal experience of living, working, and studying in Kelvin Grove. This may involve discussing the joys and the challenges of being in Kelvin Grove suburb. The digital media you create will be used to create visual projections on the final day of the Chatty Bench Festival.
If you were unable to participate in the workshop, no worries! You can contribute your digital media online here.
B. Creative Code Contribution :
You can join the 19th November 2021 (5-7pm AEST) online workshop: See Facebook event or email Kavita [k.gonsalves@hdr.qut.edu.au] to participate.
Alternatively, you can provide Hydra code which will create the visual projection by going through these tutorials. Contribute your creative code here.
WHAT IT WILL POSSIBLY LOOK LIKE
STEP 1. YOUTUBE STREAM
You can share your stories of KGUV simply made on your mobile phone. You can contribute your digital media online here. Your digital media will be used to create livestreams on YouTube such as the following:
STEP 2. YOUTUBE LIVESTREAM + HYDRA CODING
You can join the 19th November 2021 (5-7pm AEST) online workshop: See Facebook event or email Kavita [k.gonsalves@hdr.qut.edu.au] to participate.
Alternatively, you can provide Hydra code which will create the visual projection by going through these tutorials. Contribute your code here.
The Hydra visual projections may look like the following (see more Hydra patterns here: https://twitter.com/hydra_patterns?lang=en) :
Image reference: unknown. 2021. “Hydra sketch_id=ox34Uf5ZpJe1Xluj.” Hydra. June 13, 2021. https://hydra.ojack.xyz/?sketch_id=ox34Uf5ZpJe1Xluj.
Image Reference: @aliazcaa, Bahtera. 2021. “Hydra Pattern sketch_id=JUJHJ98Uh5X3f3GO.” Hydra. June 18, 2021. https://hydra.ojack.xyz/?sketch_id=JUJHJ98Uh5X3f3GO.
STEP 3. VISUAL PROJECTIONS ONTO QUT Z2 BUILDING
The visuals will be a combination of working with the digital media and Hydra code provided by the community. Final Visual Projections on the QUT Z2 building will be similar to this:
Image credit: Anastasiou, Alexis. 2021. “Guerrilha Projections against Bolsonaro.” Awards Media Architecture. 2021. https://awards.mediaarchitecture.org/mab/project/349.
Image reference:
“Adlights.” n.d. Accessed September 13, 2021. http://adlights.com.au/.
BENEFITS
By making these stories and visual projections, we hope to tackle the issue of social isolation experienced in the neighbourhood of Kelvin Grove :
provide an opportunity for you (and other KGUV community members) to voice your experience through your smartphone
contribute creative code to a collaborative artwork
build the community spirit of KGUV.
radical placemaking RESEARCH
The CBF Community Media Visual Projections is being undertaken as part of Kavita Gonsalves' PhD study “Radical Placemaking: Designing an experiential placemaking toolkit for social justice.”.The purpose of this research is to explore the creation of place-based digital stories and how it can contribute to community advocacy and social justice activism.
QUT Ethics Approval Number 4806
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice | Queensland University of Technology (QUT)