Past
POST
DIGITAL
Forward
?
Speculative adventures in
the city’s archive
Dr. Sarah Barns
ESEM Projects
@_sarahbarns
National Digital Forum
Wellington NZ
November 2012
Image: revox a77 by clocktrick on flickr

Big data = big archives
„The 20th century has
released us into history
through technology‟
-NDF 2011
Image: Greenbook

Historypin.com

Reaching out across the temporal divide… Bert & Ernie on YouTube

Digital
Relationship between
informational and
physical places
Sound, spatial media,
responsive
environments
Public space Place
Site-specific installations What is the meaning
The ‘street museum’ or contribution of a
The right to the city particular place – to
a city, to a person, to
an idea?
Archives
Archives as
landscapes of noisy
events?
The archive as an
active, experiential
platform.
Film, TV, sound, imag
e

I could tell you how many steps
make up the streets rising like
stairways, and the degree of the
arcades‟ curves, and what kind of
zinc scales cover the roofs; but I
already know that this would be
the same as telling you nothing.
The city does not consist of this,
but of relationships between the
measurements of space and the
events of its past.
Italo Calvino – Invisible Cities

Urban informatics
(Arup)

The journey
begins with
fear! Visions of
mobile futures
in 2003

When old
technologies
were
new…

Public
authoring of
the city
Urban tapestries
Proboscis 2004

Jeremy Hight
Narrative Archaeology
2003

Listening to
an archive of
past
events?

Sounding
the city
Hildegaard Westerkamp
A Walk Through
the City (1981)
Janet Cardiff
The Missing Voice (1999)

Sounding
the city

Speculative Adventure No 1:
Could sound
archives facilitate
new interactions
between the built and
recorded history of
a place
?

Jaywalking
Sydney
A research residency to Date
January- February 2007
identify the availability of
sound archives capturing Where
changes to Sydney’s built Centre for Scholarly & Archival
environment for Research
publication via map and
Collection
mobile interfaces National Film and Sound Archive
Tags
urban development, protest, Sydney
Locations
Pyrmont, Kings Cross, The Rocks

Archaeologies of
recorded action
- not -
surviving artefact

Visions of the city
“What is a tall building?
Frankly, to the developer, it‟s
an opportunity to make
money…”
Lynn Beedle,Director of the
Council of Tall Buildings and
Urban Habitat speaking to
ABC Radio in 1963

115 Victoria Street,
Potts Point

Victoria
street
soundwalk
This piece
experiments, loosely, with the
format of the soundwalk, and is
intended to accompany a stroll
down Victoria St. It is composed
entirely of recordings made
on, or about, Victoria
St, including those made around
the time of the protests and my
own field recordings from 2007.
It draws extensively from
recordings used by permission
from the documentary maker
Pat Fiske.
http://sitesandsounds.net.au

Speculative
Adventure No. 2
ABC Sydney
Sidetracks
Publishing Video + Audio Date
February – June 2008
Archives with Google
Maps Where
ABC Innovation
Collections
ABC Archives, NFSA, City of Sydney,
Powerhouse Museum,
State Library of NSW, & MCA
Tags
Sydney history
Locations
55 ‘points of interest’ with audio, video, text

Partners: ABC Archives, ABC Local Radio 702, National Film and Sound Archives, the
Dictionary of Sydney, the City of Sydney, the State Library of NSW, the Powerhouse
Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art
http://abc.net.au/sidetracks

Copy goes here for each slide
……………………………………….
Copy goes here for each slide
……………………………………….
put some more copy to
ewxplain the slide here

Sydney Sidetracks
abc.net.au/sidetracks

Listening to a
contemporary space
through its auditory past?
Martin Place
VP Day 1945
ABC Radio recording
Martin Place 2008

Interactions between built
and recorded history?

Speculative
Adventure
No. 3
Site-specific
Installations

Art & About Sydney
Unguarded Moments
-Village Art Project 2011
Last Drinks – One Last
Round at the
Hotel Australia Date
September- October 2011 & 12
-Major Commission 2012
Where
Millers Point, & surrounds
Martin Place & surrounds
Collections
National Film and Sound Archive,
Maritime Workers Union, City of
Sydney, State Library of NSW,
Formats
Digital projections
Live audio
Mobile
Web

Last Drinks: One more round at
the Hotel Australia

The Australia Hotel
1891 - 1971
Last Drinks: One more round at
the Hotel Australia
Now MLC Centre

Last Drinks
-Rowe St

The Australia Hotel
-community contributions

http://thelastdrinksproject.com

Last Drinks: One more round at
the Hotel Australia
See Flickr for full image slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/unguardedmoments/sets/72157632019425933/show/

Last Drinks: One more round at
the Hotel Australia
See Flickr for full image slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/unguardedmoments/sets/72157632019425933/show/

Use of archival recordings in
film projections
Sources: NFSA, SLNSW,
community contributions Vimeo.com/ese
For all credits go to: mtprojects
thelastdrinksproject.com/archival-sources

Use of archival recordings in
film projections
Sources: NFSA, SLNSW,
community contributions Vimeo.com/ese
For all credits go to: mtprojects
thelastdrinksproject.com/archival-sources

t:_sarahbarns
w: esemprojects.com / sitesandsounds.net.au
e: sarah@esemprojects.com
Archival image source: Theatre in Australia 1952 sourced from the Film Australia Collection, National Film and Sound Archive