Urban Emptiness: sound walks in Limassol

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Urban Emptiness was an interdisciplinary investigation of soundscapes, silence and emptiness in Limassol, Cyprus and a parallel project to related actions in various cities such as Athens, Edinburgh, Brussels and New York which all form part of the international network Urban Emptiness.

As a sound walk project it focused on the importance of real and imaginary/hidden landscapes and soundscapes in the urban environment of Limassol – Cyprus exploring different conditions of intimacy within new understandings. Through actions which involved various methodological strategies, the outcomes contribute to the discourse pivoting around the value of an experiential/performative understanding of silence and emptiness in urban life. The core of the project consisted of open workshops where participants were introduced to open access locative media software platforms (noTours, CGeomap, Echoes, Aris, Locosonic) to create site-specific and interactive media walks. Participants were invited to examine and create geolocated narratives based on different layers and experiences of the living environment and were encouraged to explore the creative use of mobile devices and the possibilities of locative media as an artist’s tool.

As result of the project a series sound walks for mobile devices were presented to the public of Limassol by following contributors/artists:

Elena Pillakouri, Evdokia Georgiou, Maria Andreou, the Mind the Gap collective, Geert Vermeire and Yiannis Colakides and of students of Cyprus University of Technology Limassol, Faculty of Communication and Media Studies (led by Dr Angeliki Gazi & Dr Yiannis Christidis), the University of the Aegean, Department of Cultural Technology and Communication (led by Dr Nikos Bubaris), the Parsons New School of Design, New York (led by Dr Lydia Matthews), Drama School of the Athens Conservatoire (led by Adonis Volanakis), RITCS School of Arts – Radio Dept Brussels (led by Dr Guy Debievre), National Technical University of Athens – School of Architecture (led by Dr Georgios Parmenidis, Dr Nelly Marda and Olga Ioannou), Edinburgh College of Arts – ESALA (led by Dr Christos Kakalis, Stella Mygdali).

Curator: Geert Vermeire
Coordination: Helene Black, Yiannis Colakides – NeMe Limassol Cyprus

Project page: http://www.neme.org/events/urban-emptiness