Generative geo-tagged audiovisual internet transmission, in collaboration with August Black.
We Are Here FM is an ongoing project by artists Betsey Biggs and August Black that navigates our conceptions of place through images and sounds that are geographically, but not necessarily chronologically or aesthetically, coordinated. Consisting of an ongoing stream of images and generative music in the web, the real-time audiovisual broadcast creates an ever-shifting hyperreal landscape of imaginary situations. Sometimes displayed as an on-site multi-channel installation, these experiences are at times magically experimental, at times hauntingly disturbing, and at times utterly mundane. All listeners, on-site or online, experience the same sound and image at the same time.
Currently using google maps for images and freesound.org for audio, the audio-visual pairing comes from a random dart throw on the global map. If there are images and sounds in that area, we show them and include them in the ongoing broadcast. No place names or context are offered, and geographical locations are randomly chosen every five minutes. As such, the project immerses visitors – both sonically and visually – in a realistic yet artificially created landscape and they must locate themselves — physically, emotionally, socially and politically — within this space.
We hope you enjoy getting lost with us.
Betsey Biggs and August Black collaborate on projects bringing together transmission practice, generative systems, community and place. Their web-based installation, We Are Here FM creates haunting hyperreal audiovisual landscapes from geo-tagged audio and panoramic images, and their Front Yard Radio project (in progress), will create a network of hyper-local, user-friendly public radio stations in and around Boulder County, Colorado.