pervasive media studio

Embedded Artists Residency

A residency supporting development of a new sound and technology project by artist Jen Southern, delivered in collaboration with Sound and Music.

iShed and Sound and Music, are delighted to award artist Jen Southern this valuable opportunity to develop a new project exploring sonic art, pervasive technologies and touch. The residency is part of Embedded, Sound and Music's new artist development programme, supported by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

Some animals can communicate over incredible distances, for example vibrations made by elephants feet can be sensed by other elephants up to twenty miles away. This phenomenon inspired Jen Southern to propose a new work that uses sound and touch, to intimately link people over long distances:

Two people each take a location-aware object with them as they travel to different destinations. When they hold the object in their hand it makes noises connected to the movement of their distant friend: a quiet clicking suggests they are walking slowly, a rapid rumble means they just caught the bus and a soft purring that they stopped for a rest. At the end of the day they take a walk together and their footsteps fall into a rhythm at opposite ends of the country, through the distant but connected objects.

The project builds on Jen’s previous collaborative mapping work Comob.

Between September 2011 and January 2012, Jen will spend supported time at Pervasive Media Studio developing her ideas and testing new technologies.

To find our more about Jen's latest news, research and inspirations, visit the iShed website and read her Project Journal

Embedded is a Sound and Music initiative delivered in partnership with iShed, a part of Watershed, supported by Pervasive Media Studio and funded by the
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.