NetPark

The NetPark project created a set of digital art experiences in a municipal park in Chalkwell Park, Southend-on-Sea, in 2015-2016; these were developed and analysed in order to understand the wider potential of locative art in public places.

The creation of a wi-fi service across the park hosted specially commissioned artworks from artists, as well as projects created with schools and HE/FE students. These were accessible to visitors through a mobile app and encouraged new perceptions and interactions with the public space through the freely-available locative artworks.

University of Brighton researchers Dr Frauke Behrendt and Karolina Doughty informed the research and development aspect of the project, which originated in a collaboration between the arts organisation Metal and the mobile app development company Calvium. The university academics also provided analysis and evaluation of the project, maximising its potential as an educative and research resource and a prototype for further, similar developments.  

 

Project aims

The aim of NetPark was to test the potential for artists, researchers and developers to create an extensible and mobile experience that connects to public spaces as a dynamic locative experience. Additionally, the project aimed to explore the educational potential of Netpark by creating educational works in collaboration with local school children.

NetPark is an artistic and educational project that aimed to devise a fully tested toolkit for locative media in public spaces. The toolkit was to be a set of joined up processes - commissioning new locative artworks, software, wi-fi gateway and analytics.

The project tested the potential for artists, researchers and developers to create an extensible and mobile experience that connects to public spaces as a dynamic locative experience. The projects aimed to understand how to host and distribute work digitally in public spaces (using our toolkit), and how audiences respond.

NetPark asked - what would it be like to experience a well-loved municipal park with an added layer of artists and educational projects? What could this added layer bring to the distribution and profile of the organisation? How can artists readily take on the challenge to build works with software that engage a variety of users and audiences?

The project was devised as a series of layers that augment the experience of the park using mobile technology. Artists, researchers and mobile developers worked together to devise a bespoke software and hardware system that exists as an exemplar model of publicly engaged practice using mobile technology.

The unique proposition formed around the resources at Chalkwell Hall, Metal's base in the park and to readily iterate a series of new works that explore sound, visuals and narrative content.

NetPark

Project findings and impact

Five artists were commissioned to create digital artwork to be experienced by the general public in the park, supported by Metal and Calvium.

  • Jamie Gledhill created the augmented reality project ‘Talking Trees’ utilising the Junaio browser;
  • Rosie Poebright created ‘ Run to Flight’ a locative audio app using GPS;
  • Joel Cahen created ‘ The Oneironaut’ where users experience a narrated dream and contention of reality;
  • Mark Grist and DJ Mixy (Michael Riccardi) created ‘ The Spoken Word Tours’ - a series of performance and musical works based on observations of park users, also including work with school children as performance poetry.
  • Metal commissioned music duo Matmos to create a new sound work app, where the artists sampled sounds from the park and made new musical works.

In addition to the commissioned artists, five local primary schools took part in a series of eight-week long workshops to create locative story apps for younger visitors to the park, in collaboration with professional authors and illustrators.

The researchers at the University of Brighton collected and analysed research material, including interviews and observations, that provided insights into stakeholder issues related to the project delivery, the perspective of makers on creating locative media art, the user experience of artworks in the form of locative media apps, and the educational aspect of creating works with schools.

The key insights are:

  • NetPark is a creative response to the challenges local authorities face around public spaces and parks, drawing on opportunities of the digital and creative economy, to establish a process for artistic and educational creation as well as stakeholder engagement.
  • NetPark shows how the combination of the park setting park with digital, mobile and locative technologies facilitates new user experiences and engages new audiences.
  • Engaging local school children in locative media creation for NetPark has a range of educational opportunities and benefits.
  • Understanding the user experience and the educational opportunities of NetPark can inform further engagement with diverse communities.
  • Curating and maintaining NetPark is an important part of its strategy and follows the setting-up process.
  • The NetPark Toolkit contains guidance and resources on the process of commissioning, producing and maintaining both locative digital art works and locative educational digital works in public outdoor spaces.
  • The NetPark projects makes a contribution to the long-term development of public space in a digital age.

Research team

Frauke Behrendt

Karolina Doughty

Output

Netpark R&D report 

Netpark toolkit for institutions considering digital art for public spaces

NetPark project website

Partners

Arts Organisation Metal

App Developer Calvium

Parks team and Digital Strategy Board at Southend-on-Sea Borough Council

Malcolm Garrett, Images & Co