blake carrington || blog

Audio Walks Installation at The Redhouse

Audio Walks, a 6-channel sound installation, was installed in the parking lot of The Redhouse Theatre in downtown Syracuse for Urban Video Project Volume 3 on April 19th. Audio Walks is comprised of recordings of 6 strolls through the city. Subverting the normal method of walking through an urban space, the walks become performative by the playful striking and sing-song narration of signs and objects in the environment.

The recording of the walker's progressive peeling away of the city, one step at a time, is mapped onto the physical and sonic environment of the installation space. Once united spatially, the recordings take on rhythmic and harmonic qualities. At The Redhouse location, speakers were faced in multiple directions, bouncing sound down alleyways, into parking garages, and thoughout downtown spaces.

French social scientist Michel de Certeau wrote of the ways in which one operates in social space. The urban grid, in both its physical and symbolic forms, is a tool of the dominant institutions that created it. Thus, by acting outside of the behaviors deemed normal or acceptable for those spaces, the walker makes a tactical strike at authority, if only for a moment.

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-posted Monday May 7, 2007-

UVP Mobile Projection Wagon

The beta-version of the UVP Mobile Projection Wagon, a red Radio Flyer wagon modified for urban projection, made its debut at The Palace Theatre in Syracuse, NY on April 20th. Riding on the coattails of the Syracuse International Film Festival, UVP created Top Ten Box Office, a video combining climactic clips from the top ten highest grossing American films of all time. Here's the list at imdb.com

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-posted Monday May 7, 2007-

Organic System 03 at The Delavan Center

The first installment of Urban Video Project was a success last Thursday, though frigid temps and a few feet of snow kept many people at home. Two local news crews came by, and a story about UVP aired on the 11 o'clock news that night. Local news is awesome.

Click here for an excerpt of Organic System 03 in its source format.

Organic System 03 describes a subjective cartography of the city of Syracuse, NY. Objects reminiscent of biological cells are connected by structures resembling dendrites. The placement of objects implies an organic, non-conscious formation of connections and pathways. At intervals individual cells or groups of cells come forward, and video of a specific location in Syracuse is shown inside. The video locations inside the cells transform the biological scene into a map.

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-posted Sunday Feb 18, 2007-