tim wright: digital writer

On the love of a Compote Tree

It is Tree Love Week. To be honest, I’m not sure I love my tree that much right now.

As some of you may know, I made some effort to open and extend the lines of communication between me and the tree over several months last year,  and all I got in return was stony silence and barely half a dozen litres of poor quality compote.

Yes, many would blame the weather, but I’m minded to blame the tree. (I acknowledge that there is always the possibility of blaming myself, but we’ll get to that later.) Wherever the blame lies, this doesn’t feel much like love.

If you do have a tree you have a crush on and want to tell the world, this is week to do it  - and maybe add some kind of contribution to the Tree Love Facebook page.

Bridget Mckenzie – one of the instigators of Tree Love Week - has several suggestions about how exactly to love a tree. Most of them are fairly conventional - nurture it, keep it company, write a poem for it, decorate it with ribbons and pendants, plant posies at the foot of its trunk, or be kind to its friends & family (i.e. other trees). I suppose one might simply give it a hug.

I have been left to ponder what went wrong between me and my tree. Could it possibly be that it was me, that I did something wrong?

Did I say something whilst very drunk that the tree was offended by – but which remains damagingly undiscussed? (I’ve done this before.) Did I over-commit at the beginning of our friendship with baroque, overambitious and frankly uncalled-for ideas of a life together that freaked the tree out? (I’ve done this before too.)

Did I mistake obsessive staring, making crap jokes and being more than a bit creepy as ‘talking’ my way into the tree’s heart? (oh... I’ve done this before too!) Did I mistake the tree’s casual interest in me as someone it could work with as something more? (yes, you’ve guessed it, I’ve done this too.)

It could be all or none of these things. The truth is that I HAVE NO IDEA what my tree is thinking. The very basic communication I have tried so far has really been nothing more than me playing out some story/fantasy of my own using the tree as the object of my obsession, without letting the tree be a tree.

With this in mind, I have decided to show what love there is left for the tree not by buying flowers or chocolates, or writing a poem or tying a yellow ribbon, but instead by investing in equipment that really will allow the tree to speak for itself.

For a start, I have contributed to an interesting Kickstarter project called Harvest Geek which offers an open-source, wireless, Internet of Things Greenhouse monitoring and automation system.

What this should allow the tree to do is generate data about itself and its environmental conditions, and even automate things around it based on the data that is generated. It kind of means it can get on with being itself without me getting in the way, I think. We shall see.

And for good measure I’ve also bought an outdoor Koubachi, which claims it will: "advise about everything your plant needs: water, fertilizer, humidity, temperature and light! Koubachi not only tells you WHEN to care for your plants, but also gives you specific instructions HOW".

Again I’m hoping these devices, programs and apps will show the tree that I only have its best interests at heart; that I’m only interested in it being itself rather than a version of itself that I’ve imagined/invented.

The tree should now be able to grow and fruit and pass through the seasons unmolested by my imagination, but still with all the signs of a life passing between us. Could this be thought of as a kind of loving?

p.s. I need to thank Kim for drawing both HarvestGeek and Koubachi to my attention – and also for her always wise lunchtime conversations (not necessarily about love).

Walking for inspiration

I've written an article for The Literary Platform about walking as interdisciplinary R & D:

“One of the great things about a rea lly great hike is it pushes you into the present; it’s so beautiful and so splendid, it’s so easy to get lost, that you’re brought entirely into the moment, like a really good game of tennis or chess.”

Ian McEwan

Writers and poets generally like walking – wandering lonely as a cloud, walking out one evening down Bristol Street, taking the path less travelled by, travelling with a donkey or a dog or a fridge. Admittedly it’s mainly the past time of male writers of a certain age (think Robert Macfarlane up to Ian McEwan by way of Will Self). But for the rest of you (I’m a man of a certain age too) walking could also be a useful and productive exercise – even in a world full of such dangerously sedentary delights as Youtube, HDTV and Xboxes...

Now read on... http://www.theliteraryplatform.com/2013/01/walking-for-inspiration/

 

THE GINGER-LINE LEAGUE: Telling Stories on a Train in Sherlock Holmes Territory

Last week, I joined a small group of people who decided to take over the front carriage of a London Overground train travelling from Highbury & Islington down to Forest Hill, and conduct an impromptu series of talks.

The event was called ‘Journey through the connected world’ and was devised by Made by Many as part of Internet Week (Europe). It was a great little event. The other speakers were excellent and it was really interesting to see how each person chose to adapt to what was a rather unusual venue, an audience that was coming and going, and some pretty tough time restrictions.  

It’s been blogged about here: http://lbbonline.com/news/iwe-journey-through-the-connected-world/; and Storified here: http://storify.com/crashtherocks/journey-through-the-connected-world-iwe

My contribution was to read out a story starting at Surrey Quays and ending at Forest Hill. I’d been inspired by how many Sherlock Holmes stories had been situated in South East London, and wanted to create my own little melodrama in the spirit of Conan Doyle (who lived near Norwood Junction for quite a while btw).

View The Ginger-Line League in a larger map

I started out by mapping out the territory, absorbing as many Holmes references as I could, and then imagining what kind of story could play out on a train chuntering through the modern-day ‘dark heart’ of South East London.

It became a curious tale of two boxes, one of which I was carrying with me on the train. We were on the hunt for a famous jewel that had been stolen in Norway and had then come into the UK via Tilbury and Woolwich. The hope was that I was holding a box that contained the jewel, and thus we would thwart the criminal mastermind who had planned this theft.

Alas, things went awry and it was clear the box I was holding was nothing but a decoy full of deadly microbes. The alert came from one of my spies, Captain Basil, sitting on Honor Oak Park station platform.

Captain Basil lived long enough to send me a sign about where the genuine jewelcase  had probably been dumped, now that it was clear we were in hot pursuit, somewhere often used by others as an emergency South London drop point for stolen goods in years gone by. 'PICKLES'.

Fortunately, my fellow travellers and I managed to escape death ourselves, thanks to meeting another man at Forest Hill, who could furnish all of us with medicines held in his collection of mysterious vials, to counter the effects of any poison we may have absorbed from my pointless casket.

Sadly I think some of our number my have drunk from the wrong vial and sealed their own peculiar fate. Perhaps that was always the intention of this little demonstration anyway– to target one person and wreak a deadly revenge, all under the guise of a piece of harmless transmedia play... 

I’ve put recordings of what was read on the train on Soundcloud btw:

And you can print out a copy of the booklet that everyone was given using the ever-marvellous bookleteer here: http://bookleteer.com/book.html?id=2705#page/1/mode/1up. So in theory you could sit on the Ginger Line with something to listen to and something to read. I can't guarantee that there'll be someone at Forest Hill to save you from an excruciatingly painful death, I'm afraid.

The final V/Os that were attached to the vials by QR codes can be found on Audioboo: http://audioboo.fm/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=%23gingerlineleague.

The hurried witness statements of those who survived the trip are on Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldton_tim/sets/72157631998663186/with/8181895425/

A lot of the links you might require in order to piece things together can be found also on Twitter (@ GingerLeague). Big thanks to Andy and Vince for being my stooges at Honor Oak Park and Forest Hill. If there’s a group of people who’d like to run this again at any time – or perhaps help me develop it a bit further, do let me know.

Come to the Roundhouse on Friday and think/talk about 'Visualised Radio'.

"What the hell is visualised radio?" you might well ask. Well, that's exactly why you should come along to the workshop on Friday - and then use this fab Roundhouse initiative to pitch a project (via IdeasTap) that can inform the rest of us about what the possibilities might be for adding pictures to radio (Ok, TV people you can stop smirking now).

I'll be at the session on Friday helping people to discuss ideas, look at relevant projects and develop pitches. 

Seriously - this is a great opportunity for anyone who wants to try to get to grips with crossmedia production, but who still retains a deep love of all things radio. Come along! 

Volunteer performers needed for the John Cage Music Walk: SIGN UP NOW!

It has been a complete delight to be part of the team working in the John Cage-inspired Proms Music Walk. And now there's an opportunity to become a performer in the live version of the Music Walk on August 17th. Details can be found near the end of this post. I urge you to come along and take part.

There are just so many aspects of this project that are right up my street, combining digital audio, geolocation, walking, writing, audience participation and serendipity.

For a start there is the @johncagebot Twitter stream that churns out odd provocations and Cage-like microscores. This, for example: 

The sound of many paper planes being made and thrown around a large room. #musicwalk

— John Cage Bot (@johncagebot) July 22, 2012

 Then there’s the series of compositions that you can listen to online, matching each track to a particular point of view near the Albert Hall. Better still you can  download the tracks for free from the website and take them out for a walk around South Kensington.

There’s even a  call to action that allows you to phone in your own sounds (the number is 020 3322 4687) and help to create new compositions that become part of the Music Walk.

And finally on 17th August there’s the opportunity for everyone to get together and take part in a choreographed Music Walk in South Kensington itself, with all ten composers taking part and the promise of surprising and slightly strange things happening along the way.

And that evening you might even get to take in the John Cage concert that’s going on  - with cactus-playing as my personal highlight. Cue John Cage playing a cactus!:

SIGN UP AS A PERFORMER

It’s really easy to sign up for this Music Walk and it's free! Here are the details that creative director Tim Hopkins has sent me:

On the 17th August, the BBC Proms will be celebrating the centenary of composer John Cage’s birth with a special Prom at the Royal Albert Hall performing his music, preceded by a brand new Music Walk, when participants will be led around site specific locations in South Kensington and listen on headphones to new pieces commissioned specially from 10 fantastic contemporary composers.

We’re searching for volunteers to come and perform in choreographed Cage-inspired actions in some of the locations on the walk. You won’t need to play any musical instruments, and there will be a workshop in advance to find out more about the project and its context.

We’re searching for about 25 volunteer performers to join us to take part in performing in some of these locations, and you’ll need to be able to attend for the dates below.

Lunch will be provided on Tuesday 14th August, and we can offer all volunteer performers complimentary tickets to the evening performance of works by Cage as a thank you: 

Dates and timings you’d be needed:

Tuesday 14 August

10.00 – 12.00 Workshop with Tim Hopkins, Creative Director

12.00 – 13.00 Lunch

13.00 – 17.00 Rehearsal in situ

Friday 17 August

15.00 Call time for performers

18.00 – 19.00 PERFORMANCE of Cage Walk

19.45 Prom 47 – Cage Centenary

If you’re interested, please get in touch with Rhia at rhia.pratsis@bbc.co.uk and participants will be selected on a first-come-first-serve basis!

Thank you!

Bark-Coding & The Compote Tree

The unseasonal weather, combined with my own lack of industry (by which I should have hoped to have raised funds by now for tree sensors and related monitoring equipment so vital to my research), has kept me much indoors and left me pondering how fickle the seasons can be in nurturing one type of species, only to thwart and diminish another.

The peas, the strawberries and I are mildewed and made mouldy by the incessant rain. The Compote Tree, on the other hand, has  swelled - en-greened and en-purpled itself in such as way that it is hard to recall the harsh bare stumpy creature it was at the beginning of the year.

It thrives alongside the blackcurrants and the gooseberries and the sage – all of whom seem to have enjoyed the autumnal atmosphere that has hung over May, June and now July.

Even the most basic of measurements show how the trunk of the tree has thickened, how the stems have strengthened, how the fruit has grown and swollen. This is all the data I have managed to gather. It is a poor effort on my part:

And yet my research continue indoors and online. I was much encouraged, for example, by my Twitter correspondence with Tim Hopkins regarding QR codes . It started with me jokingly pointing out that joints of pork from the supermarket now come with a QR code. Surely it will not be long before all living things are 'scannable' in some way, I thought. Soon everyone's Sunday dinner will be 'readable'.

Tim ended our brief exchange by sending me a QR code of his own, which, if you scan, it will quite obviously make his point for him:

I assume that if you are *really* practiced at reading QR codes you may not need to scan Tim's message at all. Rather, you will simply 'read' the image. In much the same way, I am hoping to attain a state of natural expertise that will allow me to read the tree.

For example, rather than displaying the paltry data I am gathering from the tree in a spreadsheet (as above), there is nothing stopping me from converting it into a QR code. Thus:

But what - I don't hear you ask -  if I perform this operation in reverse?

What if I take a unique image of the tree and then try to see how that unique image may yield some kind of data – or indeed a message. For example, simply take an image of the bark of the tree, magnify it, reduce it to its most basic constituent parts as a bitmap image, and then search this simplified image for something that resembles a code. Voila!

Perhaps we might call it a BARK-CODE:

Location-Based StoryTelling & The Haunter Field Trip

Last week’s Location-Based Storytelling symposium at Bournemouth University, organised by Bronwen Thomas was a treat for someone like me who’s become increasingly obsessed with digital projects that involve any kind of walking and/or mapping.

Speakers included:  

• Martin Rieser talking about an enviably rich body of work ranging from the D H Lawrence Blue Line Trail to a beguilingly wiggy transmedia project called The Third Woman (loosely based on The Third Man and involving, amongst other things, QR coded underwear!
• Robert Clark talking cogently not only about how he has mapped the works of Defoe and Austen but *why* - revealing Austen to be a much more acutely political writer than I previously imagined.
• Jerome Burg demonstratnig Google Lit Trips to great effect. His mapping out of The Grapes of Wrath in GoogleEarth is a must-see if you’re into this kind of thing.

The *real* treat for me, though, came the next day when we enticed a small group of people out to Dorchester to play with The Haunter box that Joe Flintham and I have been developing.

A big thank you goes out to Karl, Bronwen, Becca, and Steph for being prepared to offer their thoughts about the project, and also to read out some poetry. Here they are introducing themselves:

Extra big thanks, too, to Giles and Haz of Proboscis who produced a fantastic booklet for us to use during the walk for taking notes and reading poems. I’m intending that one of the outputs for this project will be a publication – using Bookleteer – that can be a contribution to the ongoing City As Material series (By the way, if you haven’t checked out the Professor Starling booklets in this series, you really should.)

I've put a couple of videos up on Youtube that give a flavour of the day:

And also there are a set of recordings on SoundCloud including this outdoor conversation about the 'magic' of going to places where great writers worked (listen out for the cyclists that interrupt us and the dogs):

Key findings from the day included:

• The box does take on a talismanic quality quite quickly. The walkers ‘invest’ in it in some way.
• Knowing the Hardy backstory about his first wife – or at least having that story revealed, in parts, as one progresses along the path, does seem to give the walk more structure and purpose. A box that simply recites poetry and records walkers is not enough.
• The social element of the walk and the shared burden/joy of the box is VERY important. The box doesn’t belong to one person and it doesn’t just talk to one person (unlike a mobile phone or tablet app that would play out from a device that was owned by one walker and packed with their own personal apps and data).
• Capturing the ad hoc conversations that go on between members of the group and recording their ‘readings’ and thoughts is also VERY important. The sense that this is a walk that is happening *right now right here  with these specific people* is somehow heightened by the ritual of carrying the box to a graveyard.
• Reading out loud in public – in the public highway - is a very good thing and people should do more of it. I kind of knew this already.
• The sounds of the birds, the river, the grass, the traffic etc are a fundamental part of the project. The mixture of listening to the box, to other people and to the sounds of the place itself becomes a bit ‘magical’.
• The box seems to concentrate the senses in a way, so that you listen and look harder. This should be a key purpose of the project, I think.
• There is scope for theatricality here. The box (and the booklet?) can force certain behaviours in the walkers such as one person walking off into the distance, the walkers progressing in single file, the walkers forming a circle, one group of walkers lagging behind or taking a slightly different route.
• The combination of local craft (the box itself), electronic engineering expertise (the circuitry inside the box), the booklet writers & publishers, and the walkers (hopefully of any age and background) really appeals to me as a truly interdisciplinary project. I particularly like the idea of The Haunter embodying a marriage of new and old ‘crafts’.
• Bringing the sound of the sea to Emma’s grave is a satisfying ending, I think.
• All in all, this was a delightful day  (the weather and the company were equally glorious). But it also gave me a feeling for the first time that Joe and I are really on to something here.
• The box is *not* just an app in disguise and it does produce a different effect and outcome to a project developed for a smartphone or a tablet.

We’re hoping to go out again in late July, so if anyone is interested in joining us, please get in touch.

After that, the future of the project will be subject to us finding some funding. For now, though, I remain encouraged and excited by the potential for walking around towns and the countryside carrying a ‘haunted’ wooden box.

The Arboreal Network & The Compote Tree

So intensely have I been watching the Compote Tree and thinking about how to communicate with it, I’ve failed to take into account the presence of other plants in the garden.  Spring has put paid to that wilful blindness. Even the lowliest weed is making its presence felt.

The tree itself is under some pressure. The weeds encroach upon it. Comfreys of enormous size suck up to it, thistles latch themselves to its trunk, dandelions and sticky-willy gather conspiratorially to whisper of its downfall.

Even its own kin, small twiggy sucker-plants look to steal its water and its light.

It has made me wonder about the attitude of the more mature plants that live in the garden – notably the other trees – the birch, the beech, the rowan, the maple, the apple and the olive. Do they too have thoughts and feelings I have yet to plumb?

Something akin to an arboreal network has been established here, I think. You don’t believe in information travelling between the trees? Think again. Check out this paper on W-Waves: 

“We hypothesized that if insect damage caused trees to communicate, maybe damage with an axe or nail would cause the tree to send an immediate message to the surrounding trees. The evidence given here seems to indicate that this is the case.”

Exactly what travels around and back and forth between these trees is unclear to me. There is undoubtedly a discernible hierarchy, though. By which I mean, none of the other trees look at me in the same aggressive way as the Compote Tree.

The apple is authoritative and individual, I’d say – easily the compote’s equal - but I sense deference in the others (apart perhaps from the diffident, distant birch that stands alone by the pond).

Only the other day, whilst out in the garden taking photographs again, I noticed for the first time that the main gang of trees are actually arranged in a line, with the compote tree standing at the centre.

The olive is a cheat, I know. It sits in a pot, so, to some extent, it is I who placed it in line with the others – but who am I to say whether I did this voluntarily or was in some way pressured to do this? The compote tree is nothing if not a bully, that is clear to me. “A natural leader” some others might call it.

In particular, I notice that the maple – I think it is a French maple – is leaning quite strongly towards the compote tree – reaching out to it or perhaps lowering its head in its boss’s direction as an act of submission.

==

Yes, yes, I *know* this is all supposition and in part a reflection of my own feelings of inadequacy and insecurity about what is happening in my life at the moment, and how other beings beyond this garden may be thinking of me. But there is more to it than this.

The Compote Tree has done something dark in the past that all the other trees know about. Or they have conspired once long ago, in the way weeds conspire to muddle my plans and smother my babies. A dark secret is locked up within the Arboreal Network, and I am committed to revealing it.

The Haunter Field Day: Tuesday 19th June 2012 - Join Us!

A DAY FOR RECORDING, BETA TESTING, WALKING & TALKING

Both Joe and Tim are going to be contributing to the Location-Based Storytelling Symposium at Bournemouth University on Monday 18th June. See http://symposium.bujournalism.info

The next day – Tuesday 19th June – we’ll be going to Dorchester to do some work out in the field. We’d love people to join us.

Our intention is to:

• record as much Hardy material as possible out in the field – and capture ambient sound from the route of the walk, snippets of conversation, natural sounds etc.

• work with Proboscis to create a Haunter booklet (or perhaps more than one!?), and simultaneously contribute to the very exciting ongoing series of collaborative urban explorations, City As Material: http://proboscis.org.uk/projects/ongoing/city-as-material/

• walk and talk with people from various backgrounds and disciplines in order to understand how The Haunter project can be developed to appeal to the broadest range of user groups and local service providers

People can walk with us, try out Joe’s beta version ‘haunted’ box, help us record audio, create booklet material or simply join the conversation about what we’re trying to do with this project.

It may be also useful for Joe and I to give a short talk at some point on the walk, and perhaps others would like to do the same. If you have some thoughts or a story you’d like to share with the group at some point during the day, do let Tim know in advance, so we can plan it into the schedule.

The Plan for the Day

Here's a GoogleMap of where we’re proposing to walk at. You can join us at any point during the day. To track us down follow @moongolfer on Twitter.

View Where The Night Rooks Go in a larger map

10:30

Coffee at the Dorset County Museum

11:00 

Start the walk proper at the Hardy statue at the top of High W Street, following the Yellow Route. Joe & Tim to introduce the project. Proboscis will talk about its City As Material series.

12:30 

Arrive at Gray’s Bridge on the London Road. Here, we may split into two groups, one walking on the Red Route, the other on the Blue Route.

13:30 

Arrive at Stinsford Graveyard.

13:45

Late lunch break – you’ll need to bring your own food & drink or we can repair to the  Kingston Maurward Gardens, which has a cafe

14:45 

People will be free to follow the Black Route on the map via Lower Bockhampton, up to the Heath and on to Hardy’s Birthplace (sadly closed on Tuesdays). Or you may wish to head back to Dorchester via Max Gate.

We'll  continue to make field recordings between Stinsford & Dorchester and will be available to talk to people about the project.

16:00 

Disperse at leisure.

Charting the weather for my Compote Tree

Some of you are probably thinking I’ve already given up on my compote tree (in the same way as I give up on so many of my projects after an initial flurry of interest).

Far from it. 

Like the tree itself, I may look as if I’m standing still, but things are always moving, creeping out into the light.

For example, I have been watching the weather. Thanks to the very marvellous London Grid For Learning Weather Monitoring System, I have been grabbing all the relevant data from the Streatham weather station. Here, for example, is a spreadsheet with all the weather data for my area for the last 30 days or so:  Download Streathamweatheraprmay2012

This weather station is only 5 mins walk from my house so the conditions it is describing are  - I would assume - relevant to my tree.

As an experiment, I have tried various ways of cross referencing this data and re-charting it to see if I can find patterns or ‘meaning’.

In order to protect myself from imposing something on the data that my mind might be deliberately looking for, I have been careful not to put much thought or strategy (or indeed *knowledge*) into making these charts, but have simply let the machine generate something for me. That way some interesting patterns might emerge.

I was right! As with the patterns made by the tree branches (as mentioned in a previous post) it’s clear there are messages here.

Any thoughts you might have about how to interpret these charts – or indeed about how to visualise the weather data in general - please let me know.

My next task in this area will surely be to take the weather station feed and create my own web-based monitoring system. I have much to learn and do.

And then there is the knotty issue of monitoring the tree itself. I have already created a spreadsheet for that too ( Download Compotetreedata), and I intend to start taking measurements with rudimentary instrumention at the beginning of the month. Watch this space!