Follow this sound work as it leads you across the park to meeting points for animals, plants and strangers. As you listen, consider the needs of all these inhabitants and our symbiotic relationship that is increasingly under threat. Between heartbeats, vibrations and the alignment of crossing paths, this work sounds out a shared existence, putting these moments of connectivity with strangers of all species on the People’s Park’s Plinth.
Starting at Furtherfield in Finsbury Park, use your mobile device to scan the QR code on display outside the gallery. The work begins by requesting a heartbeat to be submitted via a finger tip, translated into sound and heard through headphones. A navigation system opens, presenting a compass aligned to three pathways: ‘Close to the ground’, ‘Into the Trees’ and ‘Under the Water’. Depending on the direction the device is pointed, a sound work will play and you’ll be invited to explore the park along this pathway while you listen.
Offsite listeners arriving from the Furtherfield website will also be able to access the work, connecting to a simulation of the navigation system.
We are just animals, humans and machines getting on together in specific lifeworlds was an interactive sound work for Finsbury Park, creating moments of connection between strangers of all species. Produced in collaboration with Lisa Hall, commissioned by RCA Curating Collective Breath Mark and Furtherfield, the work is site-specific and could be accessed from Finsbury Park via a mobile device from May 2021 - January 2022.
About
In this first ‘taster’ artwork for the People’s Park Plinth project on display during the summer of 2021, one pathway ‘Close to the ground’ is operational. If this work is selected in a public vote in August 2021, further pathways and interactivity will be developed.
The work features interviews with volunteers at Edible Landscapes, a forest gardening group based onsite at Finsbury Park: David Berrie, Imogen Simmonds, Jo Homan, Juiliette Ezavin and Theo Betts. The artists were commissioned by Breath Mark, a curatorial collective formed as a part of the Royal College of Art’s MA Curating Contemporary Art Programme Graduate Projects 2021, as part of Furtherfield’s People’s Park Plinth project. The People’s Park Plinth imagines the whole of Finsbury Park as a platform for public digital art where people can explore a range of artworks and then choose the one they want to experience more of.
Breath Mark
Breath Mark is a curatorial collective formed as a part of the Curating Contemporary Art Programme Graduate Projects 2021, Royal College of Art. As six members from various parts of the world, we faced the challenge of curating remotely, exploring a new curatorial approach to a site-specific project, blending physical and digital experiences.
Curators: Harriet Min Zhang, Kevin Bello, Soyeon Park, Yifei Tang, Yuting Tang, Jindra Bucan.
@breathmark_collective
Furtherfield
Furtherfield is London’s longest-running art and technology (de)centre. With 25 years of experience, through 50+ exhibitions, and over 100 international partnerships, it has developed a specialism in alternative systems of organisations and co-creation. Projects done by Furtherfield have been featured by the BBC, the Guardian, the New Scientist, Wired, the Art Newspaper, and Hyperallergic. Highlighted on the Piccadilly Tube Line map of key destinations alongside Buckingham Palace, Furtherfield Gallery is in the Borough of Haringey - the UK’s local authority with the highest levels of income inequality.
www.furtherfield.org
Technical development
Studio Hyte is a South London-based design studio, working between graphic design, interaction, and emergent communication. Approaching branding, print, website, and exhibition design through progressive methods of engagement, they aim to create meaningful work that considers and responds to the social and cultural contexts it exists in.
www.studiohyte.com
