I was visiting my grandparents in Middleboro last weekend when I chanced upon an interesting article in the Boston Globe about an artist's installation of found objects in Franklin Park. I've been thinking about acoustic sound installations, or music for public spaces recently, so I took interest in this project.
The outpost is a hut created with logs, branches, rope, and a tarp. It is very well made, and contains objects which have been found in the park, or left by visitors. It is meant to tell us how the park is used, who uses it, and how nature and the study of our surroundings can benefit humanity. Since the artist (whose name is Brandon Nastanski) did not seek a permit to create this work, it will most likely be discontinued by park rangers and city of Boston (they have left notices by the outpost implying its future destruction).
Because of my interest in public spaces and functions such as travel, one of my Summer projects is to create video of Boston-Related activities to be used in a large vocal work. It will be somewhat like an Opera, but with no plot, or specific characters. I hadn't figured out an interesting way to incorporate nature into the mix of trains, skyscrapers, and street activity, but I knew that this was it as soon as I saw it.
The article I read states that the outpost is located on the J.P side of the park, "near the Glen Road entrance." It is also at the base of a stone outcropping. With this information, plus a video of the outpost on Youtube, I was able to locate it on google earth (you can actually see it!), though on my first visit to the park, I had been unsuccessful in finding it.
My good friend Daniel Hawkins is helping me with the video project, so today we went to the park, and with the images from google in mind, again tried to find the outpost. A little over an hour into our search, we had basically given up, and just after turning back, we ran into the artist himself, who asked us if we were "looking for an outpost."
We said yes, and he led us there. It was less than a minute from where we had turned around, but was down a hill, and was not easily visible from where we were standing before. He being interviewed by an art critic from the Boston Phoenix, so in addition to finding the outpost and meeting its creator, we were also able to hear the background of the project directly from him. It was great to sit in on this, and I'm grateful that he let us (alot of people are like to keep those kinds of things private). We told him a little about our project, and he said he would be glad to collaborate in the future. Sometime soon, Daniel and I will go back to take video of Franklin Park and the outpost, but we needed to find it first.
On our way back, we met a kid in green Street station who saw Daniel's Audio equiptment and told us he was a rapper. Daniel gave him the microphone, and he asked if we could give him a beat. I tried my best, and we recorded him before the train came. He said he often performed at the Hyde Square Task Force, so we may see him again. This experience gave us a base for another aspect of the project - audio recordings of people from the city. We agreed that we won't go out looking for those, but if we happen upon them (like today), we can use them for something. This is the first day Daniel and I have gone out to work towards the video project, and I think it's really going to work.
No comments:
Post a Comment