Friday 6 March 2015

Augmenting Elders, Placing Stories and The Concreteness of Poetry

It has been an exciting month for me with lots of projects on the go. The big news was that my PhD was submitted for examination in February - the wait begins.

AwhiWorld is taking off and the Te Ngira project is entering another phase. More detailed information can be found on the AwhiWorld  website or on my personal site but for now a summary:
  • In February I spoke at the UNITEC Community Development Conference on my work - hopefully I can put some links to this up soon
  • David Sinfield from AUT South Art and Design, and myself have begun a project with his students on Place: Concrete Poetry. Concrete Poetry is a type of practice where typography and visual elements mix together artfully. In this case sites around Papakura form the nexus for  each students practice and eventual work. This is an AwhiWorld - AUT South collaboration.
  • Kim Newall and myself conducted an AwhiWorld workshop at Elmwood Retirement Village showing them the wonders of augmented reality. Residents turned themselves into augmented creatures and made some wandering creatures their own.  More events and projects are planned this year as part of our Augmenting Elders programme.
  • Our youth oriented Awhi_Creatures special event at the January Accelerating Aotearoa Geek Camp was a success - we are now planning a major Awhi_Creatures related exhibition for later in the year.
  • The next version of the Papakura Marae app is under development in collaboration with Imersia Group - it will have clearer graphics and a more user friendly interface. More details will be provided when it launches in a few months.
  • Place_Stories (Matariki) gained CNZ funding. This is an AwhiWorld project that geo-locates seven sound installations around Papakura. The sounds emphasise the liminality of the time of year, the technology, the artist's concept and the spaces and places themselves
All of these projects are designed to support the spirit of place in some way - whether it be through creating magical workshops using emerging technology, through activating spaces as points of creative practice, or directly laying information into locations to be magically encountered
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