The Poetry Playpark

THE POETRY PLAYPARK

The Poetry Playpark is an experimental testbed to try out ideas and ways of sound-designing and placing poetry, ambient, music and SFX in an external environment, accessed via a mobile device such as a smartphone to create what I call ‘a poemscape’ (a poetic soundscape).

Download the playpark to your phone by the usual method [HERE] , then drive/cycle/run/saunter lanquidly (it’s what the Romantic poets did!) up to the top of the Quantock Hills, to Wilmot’s Pool carpark; it’s between the evocatively named Dead Woman’s Ditch and Crowcombe Gate.

Once at the carpark, open SatsymphQR, select ‘poetryplaypark’ from Library – and you will see the whole soundscape spread out in front of and all around you. Put your headphones on or earbuds in and – wander. You can either look at your screen to see where the ‘soundpools’ etc are, or you can simply stick your phone in your pocket and use those things sticking out the side of your head ( … he means ‘ears’… ) to navigate the ‘scape (NOTE: stick to paths and things that look like paths. Do not disturb the wildlife)! The audio is automatically triggered by your location (and, no, once downloaded you don’t need a network signal – all the content is IN the app, it’s just triggered by GPS!)

Enter a parallel soundworld thru’ the magic portal of ‘the smartphone’!

Play with the soundpools, stepping in and out of them to see where ‘the walls ‘ are; pivot on the spot: the sound will move around you. It’s fun! As stated, the Poetry Playpark is an ongoing, evolving experiment – if bits don’t work aurally, they don’t work; if the whole thing falls flat on it’s face, it falls flat on it’s face (shouldn’t do: it’s usually because something which needs enabling on your phone hasn’t been enabled, sorry! See FAQS). It’s an evolving work: All Will Be Change.

COMPOSITION: one of the main compositional (sound design) considerations is SERENDIPITY: locate X, overlap X with Y, hmm, add Z, layer M underneath? What is of even more interest is the question of AUTHORSHIP: as each participant mixes their own sound experience by WHERE they are within the matrix, and by HOW THEY NAVIGATE the matrix, each participant is in fact also their own composer! Furthermore: the experience is EMBODIED: you are invited to use your body, to walk around, to change orientation to craft the individual experience.

Concept/Sound Design/Arrangement/Experience Design: Ralph Hoyte. App Development: Phill Phelps. Poetry by members of the Quantock Poetry Trail group (Elaoise Benson, Ann Diment, Jon Dovey, Viv Grant, Ralph Hoyte, Rachel Irven, Anne Lovejoy, Jan Martin, Terence Sackett, Angela Wensley, Angela Wood, Richard Burke)