Hi, Glen here, this will be an ongoing blog series reflecting on the last 7 years of Playable Streets by exploring the 17 new works we have created so far.
#3 REACH OUT SOUNDS
The Reach Out Sounds journey began with Polyglot Theatre, the Naarm (Melbourne) arts company known internationally for its groundbreaking immersive works created for and with children. I started working for Polyglot in 2010 as a performer, musician and collaborator and in 2015 I was on tour as live musician/ sound designer for their immersive theatrical work Paper Planet. I was nervous and excited, 5 weeks of dates across the US culminating in a week of shows at the New Victory theatre, 42nd Street NYC. My early experiments with interactive technologies (with help from Pikkle Henning, Andrew Callaghan and Cayn Borthwick) had led to a kit that would turn conductive materials into MIDI triggers controlling software instruments. Now I could turn a watermelon into a guitar or a piece of copper into a synthersizer!
My ‘sound nest’ created for Polyglot’s Paper Planet, Philadelphia, 2015
With this new kit as part of my live music setup I could invite kids to interact and create the music in the theatre themselves. I created a series of copper leaves that adorned my sound desk (pictured) that could be played and heard throughout the forest of cardboard trees. Participants had to touch a copper hand on the side and then touch a leaf to activate the music. I would pop up from my desk and guide people through it and sometimes we would play music together, me on the Ableton Push (midi controller/ instrument) and kids on the copper leaves.
During one of the shows a girl about 4 or 5 called her dad over to help as she was having trouble reaching the copper hand that would activate the sounds. He obliged and they held hands to play the leaves, in that moment the experiment completely shifted. This device could allow people to play each other! I suggested dad should keep his hand where it was and her daughter should touch a leaf and then make a sound by touching her dads hand… Ta-daaaaa! She went on to play music on her dads nose, ears and forehead!
“When working with new technology we have these 2 questions in mind: what could this do & what could others do with it?”
That experience had planted the seed for what would become Reach Out Sounds, I spent the next year with the idea bouncing around in my head before applying to Merri-Bek council’s public art program for Melbourne Fringe. I now had 5 grand and a deadline, the starting place for most early Playable Streets works…
The Idea was to create a series of ‘pods’ that had sound triggers on the top, they could only be activated by 2 or more people connecting between them. Cayn Borthwick provided the sounds and coder friends, Pikkle Henning and Matt Blair worked on the tech. We had jumped into the world of Raspberry Pi computers - with very little idea of what we were jumping into! As we got the system (mostly) working I dreamed about what the installation would look like. Although I had built theatre sets and random things like a crumpet gun I was no expert on the manufacturing process for something like this. I called a few places and emailed my plans, I worked out quickly that this 5k budget was not going to accommodate specialised fabrication!
Matt Blair and Pikkle Henning discuss the coding of the Raspberry Pis with the new ‘pods’ waiting to be wired up.
So I measured up the speakers we were using and headed to Northcote Plaza to try my luck there. I wanted these pods to be durable, fit the speaker and other components and most of all be very cheap. The Reject Shop had just the thing, a round white bin! Yep a garbage bin, with a lid, $24, sorted. Top that with a bamboo platter from KMart and you have yourself a bunch of ‘pods’.
We were making, testing, breaking, swearing, fixing and high fiving well into the night before the install. It was all worth it as we had our first participants join us in Victoria St Mall and get straight into making some music! Folks were really into the idea and came back repeatedly to explore more. Some people recruited passers by to link together and reach a pod that was too far away. Others made a chain of people that crossed the whole lane. The concept worked, now it was time to have a play!
Connect to make music! Melbourne Music Week 2016
Over the next couple of years we presented Reach Out Sounds in a variety of venues from an outdoor children’s festival for Melbourne Music Week to the foyer of the Sydney Opera House. We were also exploring new sounds and interaction modes that would take the installation to the next level. Unfortunately 2020 happened and all of a sudden I didn’t see much hope for Reach Out Sounds to ever be presented again. Strangers touching each other in public? Ferrrgeddaboutit! But I couldn’t forget about it, it was bouncing around in my head even more now, especially reading articles about ‘skin hunger’ and how important interpersonal connection is to our species!
The success of Reach Out Sounds motivated me to start a PhD at Deakin exploring ways that we can use technology and music to break down social barriers and make ‘norm~bending connections’. This work is a good example of a rule that has come to define a lot of Playable Streets’ use of technology. When working with new technology we have these 2 questions in mind: what could this do & what could others do with it? We look forward to seeing what others do with Reach Out Sounds in the future!
Reach Out Sounds Victoria St Mall 2015
Speaking of, we think it is almost time for Reach Out Sounds to come out of retirement and get back out on the streets! Watch this space…
Reach Out Sounds is part of our ‘Pop Up and Play’ repertoire and you can see / read more about it here
If you are interested in presenting Reach Out Sounds, collaborating with us or just want to say hi drop us a line: hello@playablestreets.com
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Thanks for reading 🤙
-Glen
PSPS (Playable Streets Post Script)
Note on the physical design of Reach Out Sounds: As mentioned above the original Reach Out Sounds design was created from some cheap Reject Shop bins and Kmart bamboo platters. This is probably not how we would make something today but I learnt a valuable lesson here. Sometimes design is the experience and sometimes design needs to get out of the way of the experience. The whole reason for Reach Out Sounds to exist is to get people playing with each other not with a ‘pod’. As the design progressed we explored how we could make the pods LESS interesting so that all the focus would be on the interpersonal connections between people.