A year ago I ran the “Birds On A Wire” pilot to try to get people to “play” images like a piece of music. We were looking for a pilot that gave visitors a chance to make unexpected connections between music and the world around them, to be inspired by the landscapes of Alberta, and to share what they noticed with the people around them if they want.

They were supposed to drag their fingers across photographs of Alberta landscapes to trigger sounds. This already abstract notion was made more confusing by technology (capacitive sensors under the photos) that verged on magic, poor sound quality and way too much text. During the pilot I had conversations with visitors who liked the combination of unexpected elements (landscapes and music) which encouraged me to keep the idea around until we had a chance to look at it again. As the E&S gallery moved ahead one of the topic areas that emerged focused on looking at different landscapes in the province. The “Birds On A Wire” pilot seemed like something that might work as a way of comparing different Alberta landscapes in a playful way.

The pilot for “Birds On A Wire 2” uses a touch screen monitor. The visitor gets to choose between a variety of background landscapes on top of which a visitor can collage more landscape elements (animals, trees, buildings, landscape pieces) or mark specific points on the image with musical notes. Each of these elements triggers a sound. When it is running, the program “reads” those bits they have marked or added to the image and “plays” what they have created.  The visitor can change the speed, change the background and save their composition.

A screenshot from the new version

We are still testing the new version, but already it seems promising.  Everyone who has worked with it does something different – creating their own new landscape (adding new image elements), or making music (adding notes) inspired by what is already there   It has held their attention, inspiring them to iterate by changing the backgrounds and shifting what they have already done.

So what is the measure of success for this pilot? Composing a beautiful song? Probably not. Success will be when people have a conversation with the person next to them about the music or the landscape they were looking at. As this pilot goes forward I will watch as much for what people think about the activity as for how they are using it.

-Kristofer

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