In which I go for a walk

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Multiple

Walking piece details

I was invited to create a piece for consumption inside a shipping container that is to travel the Swedish countryside, as part of a project hosted by Northern Sustainable Futures, in the small town of Moskosel, in northern Sweden, for which, in total, over 50 artists have created, or will create, work.

Naturally, I wanted to put together a walking piece, and after a few iterations, I settled on a video piece, which is projected on three walls of the container, where I give the impression that I walk from my home, just outside of São Paulo (Brazil), via a dozen, or so, countries, to Moskosel, and back.

An important theme of the project was to use AR (Augmented Reality) and/or VR (Virtual Reality) as an integral part of the work, created for this project. Several artists chose to create work designed for a HUD, a heads-up display, like the Oculus, as several of these are to travel together with the container. However, I see limited potential in VR, even though I am heavily anticipating AR in the sense of the seamless overlay of digital data on top of the real world, consumed through glasses in the same way that, like in a game of Pokémon Go, virtual data is overlaid on top of the real world, when looking at the world through your camera.

But, the term ‘augmented reality’ can be interpreted in a much broader sense, such that anything that, well, augments, adjusts, reality, is a type of ‘augmented reality’. And, the obvious tool for this, at the moment, is the many shapes in which AI is taking over the world in these last few months.

So, my piece, ‘In which I go for a walk’, kept the video piece at the center, but was, eh, augmented with a number of supporting pieces in different formats, several of which were heavily influenced by the use of AI.

You can check the attached link for the full details, and below you find the full collection of work which I created as part of this project.

+ A dynamic, web-based version, a mosaic of videos and images, which is different every time you look at it. One iteration is designed for the web, one fits the three walls of the traveling shipping container.
This version runs for 4.5 to 5 hours.

+ A lower-tech version of the above, which is just a mosaic of individual videos, and a video itself, not requiring an internet connection, and specifically designed for the three walls of the shipping container.
This version runs for about 40 minutes.

+ A series of two-dozen, or so, location based podcasts on the Placecloud platform, highlighting places I visited during the two trips I made to record the raw videos that went into my main piece. The texts were written by ChatGPT, illustrated by Midjourney, and narrated by a synthesised version of my own voice, created through Elevenlabs.
Each podcast runs for 2 to 3 minutes.

+ Two YouTube playlists, stringing all the recorded videos together.
These playlists run for about 30 hours.

+ A 24-page booklet with reflective texts on 9 locations I visited during my two trips. The texts were created through ChatGPT.

+ A photo-a-day series for the 61 days I spent in Europe, on the second trip during which I recorded the videos for my main piece.

+ A logo for the project, created by Midjourney.