So Many Important Things

An Interesting Project in which I'm involved, created by Jason Grote and Karinne Keithley, for The Conflux Festival on art and technology.

CONFLUX
The art and technology festival for the creative exploration of urban public space. Produced by Glowlab in New York since 2003.

Read the instructions below. Download link is at the bottom of the page.

This is a walking tour of anywhere. How this worked was this way: we approached multiple associates from around the world (novelists, poets, playwrights, journalists, academics, visual artists, the unclassifiable, and people who are not writers of any stripe) and asked them for psychogeographical travelogues. In return we got texts from as close as Midtown Manhattan or as distant as Jerusalem or Port au-Prince. In one case we even got a travelogue of someone's dreams. We also dropped in a few small pieces of found text by authors we do not know, and wrote things to stitch the piece together.

Is this an exercise in accidental psychogeography and pattern recognition, sort of like when you listen to "Dark Side of The Moon" while watching The Wizard of Oz? Or is it, as one friend put it, an exercise in "the vertiginous cosmopolitanism that psychogeography is designed to avoid?" We don't know. Also, you are smart and will be able to figure out what you think without us telling you.

Do this: download the linked file to your personal listening device. If you do not have an mp3 player, email Jason at jason (at) jasongrote.com and he will mail you a CD. Then, choose one of the five paths below and follow the walking tour. Have fun!

1) Once you have finished loading the audio onto your mp3 player, exit via the nearest door. Take a right. Follow the instructions on the audio.

2) Walk towards a place that you find dangerous for whatever reason. Get as close as you can to this place without risking your personal safety. Without crossing whatever your own boundaries are, follow the instructions on the audio.

3) Extinguish all of the lights wherever you are and lie down on the floor. In your imagination, follow the instructions on the audio.

4) Walk to a place you have never been but have always been curious about. Once there, follow the instructions on the audio.

5) Look at this graphic, either on a screen or printed on paper, while you listen to the audio. Enter the world of the picture and follow the instructions on the audio.

Download the audio tour

If you have any problems with the download, email jason [at] jasongrote.com

CREDITS:
Conceived, edited, produced, and directed by Karinne Keithley and Jason Grote, and performed by Jenny Seastone Stern. Written by Annie Nocenti, Amber Reed, Carlos Murillo, Drew Haxby, Elana Greenfield, Guy DeBord, Jason Grote, Jen Collins, Jennifer Dumpert, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Karinne Keithley, Leah Souffrant, Lorraine Martindale, Matthew Burgess, Mimi Lipson, Peggy Nelson, Rebecca Solnit, Susan L. Miller, and Walter Benjamin.