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Writing in Augmented Space

In this project, you will write and record an augmented-space audio walk, which you will make available via a web page. You will also perform a portion of the work for an off-site audience of your classmates.

Four Products: Script/Map, Audios, Web Page, Live Reading/Introduction

For this assignment, you'll create four different products that build upon one another.

  1. a printed script (following the formatting guidelines below) with an accompanying map, which will be turned in on paper before the other products below.

  2. an audio recording of the script, saved as several .mp3 files, and digital files of any documents (visual or textual) that an audience would need to experience the walk., including a map

  3. a web page that archives the project--including links to the digital audio files, maps, images, etc.--making the project available online to both on-site and off-site audiences.

  4. an live reading, with introduction, of a portion of the walk to entice an audience to go out and take it, and to provide enough context and direction to do so.

Common Terms for Visual Elements in Augmented Space

We will use the following terms to describe the various aspects of your project:

Place: the general area that defines the parameters of your WAS Project as a whole

Location: a specific spot within the place where the audience will receive a particular part of the content. Locations are defined by what your audience is able to perceive at any one moment or continuous segment of time. If your audience is walking or driving, the location might be a route or path followed, which lasts a given length of time. Your place should consist of multiple locations.

View: the totality of what can be seen from any one location.

Gaze: what is seen in a view when particular directions, distances, landmarks, characteristics are called into focus.

Object: Within a gaze, particular thing (a building, sign, rock, bush) to which you draw your audience's attention

Step 1: Writing the Script and Creating the Map (Hardcopy, 50% of Grade)

The first portion of this project to be completed is the script. The script is divided into locations, and presents

See these sample script pages for how these elements must be formatted and coordinated in the pages.

Your Purpose is Larger than Your Place

Key to writing this script is conceiving of a place as a medium for writing, rather than its subject.

A project installed in a neighborhood from your childhood, for instance, could be about family bonds, or the role of sports in Minnesota culture, or the lasting influence of a television show, or the legacy of the Obama administration. The project is not about the neighborhood. Your chosen place or space--and how you have the reader moves within it--is simply the "vehicle" of your thoughts. Your purpose is larger than your place.

Genre, Purpose, Audience

Your script will pursue the purpose and address the audience of a written genre: for example, a magazine feature article, a piece of fiction, a lyric poem, an autobiographical memoir, an argumentative analysis, a book review, etc.

It will realize this purpose, however, in the medium of augmented space. Like the genres mentioned above, your script should have a unified purpose, effect, and tone that is intended to move an intended audience in a particular way: intellectually and/or emotionally.

Title

The purpose, tone, and genre of the piece should be expressed in a well chosen title.

Map

The map should clearly show labeled locations within the place that make up the walk. The map may be hand-drawn, printed from some source, created in software, or some combination of these techniques.

Step 2: Recording the Audio as Digital Files (15% of Grade)

You will learn to use the sound-recording and -editng software Audacity to record your script, mixing the narration with sound effects, music, and other voices as called for in the script.

The walk will be divided among different locations, each with its own recording saved as an .mp3 file.

Like podcasts, this part of the work should also have cover art composed in a 300 x 300 pixel image (in .gif, .jpg, or .png format)

Step 3: Designing and Posting the Web Page (20% of Grade)

You will use Dreamweaver to create a web page for making the project's sound files, maps, images, and other documents available. This is similar to this archive page for the Janet Cardiff's and George Bures Miller's "Her Long Black Hair."

The web page should include

Step 4: Presenting a Live Reading and Introduction(15% of Grade)

You will present a 6-8 minutes talk about your project to the class, consisting of

The talk that you give will address not your classroom audience of your peers, but the audience in the following scenario:

The Rhetorical Scenario

Imagine that you have written and installed your augmented-reality walk not for this class, but to be part of a larger event: for instance,

  • an annual city festival,
  • a month-long art show at a local gallery,
  • an eight-week exhibit at a museum,
  • a series of fiction and poetry readings,
  • a holiday fair,
  • the launch of a new web site or magazine
  • an academic or professional conference,
  • an athletic event (like Grandma's Marathon) with lots of associated events taking place beforehand , etc. 
  • a training or enrichment seminar

You can define this larger event any way that seems appropriate to the place, subject matter, and purpose of your walk. 

To kick off this event, the organizers are hosting an opening public celebration with speeches, music, skits, talks, food, drink, etc. 

They have asked you to talk for 6-8 minutes on stage at this celebration about your augmented-reality walk to make attendees aware of the walk on the events schedule, and to encourage people to take it.  The organizers especially wanted you to include visual aides with your talk to make it more accessible and attention grabbing.

The Three Tasks of Your Talk

Your talk has three obstacles to overcome:

  1. Most people would not understand what an augmented-reality walk is and how it's something more than a mere tour
  2. Many in audience might be unsure about how they take the walk: where they go, what technology they need, anything they might need to do first (like print out a map?)
  3. Your audience needs to have their appetites whetted for the experience that your particular walk has to offer and why they should try it out.


Your presentation to the class should demonstrate how you would give this talk to overcome these obstacles: uncertainties of what, how, and why.

Particular Requirements:

Resources for Writing in Augmented Space

Augmented Space Media and Services

Student Examples of Assignment

Public Tours, Walks, and Augmented Space Installations

Cardiff and Miller's Augmented-Space Walks

Format and Assignment Materials

Online Services and Resources