J. R. Carpenter (2013) "The Broadside of a Yarn: A Situationist Strategy for Spinning Sea Stories Ashore," Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, 18:5,
88-95. |
ABSTRACT :: "The Broadside of a Yarn: A Situationist Strategy for Spinning Sea Stories Ashore," by J. R. Carpenter, reflects upon The Broadside of a Yarn, a multi-modal performative pervasive networked narrative attempt to chart fictional fragments of new and long-ago stories of near and far-away seas with nought but a QR code reader and a hand-made print map of dubious accuracy. The Broadside of a Yarn was commissioned by ELMCIP for Remediating the Social, an exhibition which took place at Inspace, Edinburgh, 1-17 November 2012. The Broadside of a Yarn remediates the broadside, a form of networked narrative popular from 16th century onward. Like the broadside ballads of old, the public posting of The Broadside of a Yarn signified that it was intended to be performed. Embedded within the cartographic space of this printed map are QR codes which link to web pages containing computer-generated narrative dialogues, performance scripts replete with stage instructions suggesting how and where these texts are intended to be read aloud. As such, these points on the physical map point to potential events, to utterances, to speech acts. The stated intention in creating this work was to use the oral story-telling tradition of the sailor’s yarn, the printed broadside and map, the digital network, and the walk-able city in concert to construct a temporary digital community connected through a performative pervasive networked narrative. Through the process of composition the focus shifted away from the temptation to lure people on walks through a city tagged with links to stories of the sea, toward a desire to compel people to collectively speak shifting sea stories ashore. This paper reflects critically upon this shift, toward an articulation of The Broadside of a Yarn as an collective assemblage of enunciation.
DOWNLOAD :: J. R. Carpenter (2013) "The Broadside of a Yarn: A Situationist Strategy for Spinning Sea Stories Ashore," Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, 18:5,
88-95.
The Broadside of a Yarn has been presented in the following cotexts:
Remediating the Social
Inspace, Edinburgh, UK
1-25 November 2012
Performance: 1 November 2012 8PM - late.
Edinburgh College of Art Sculpture Court
The Print Map as a ‘literary platform’
The Literary Platform
22 May 2013
Authoring Software entry on The Broadside of A Yarn
Artist's Statement
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