line:// /// /// "Alone on the Run" Abdel has sold the passports that Abd el Khabir entrusted to him. Tired of a life of petty crime he has decided to escape from barcelona, taking with him the money he has made. He knows he risks death at the hands of al kabir but he will go far away - to the north. a childhood friend, a bit older than him, is established in moscow. he's married and isnt part of the circle of el kabir and the mediterranean. Salim will vouch for him for the visa, he could stay a while there while he organises his things. But once in Moscow, Abdel soon finds out that Salim's business connections are not exactly what he expected .... the test projects ("Dani Maeda on the Run" & "Alone") carried out in the nineties - using the map as an interface for story telling - provide the basis for the next phase of this narrative work. GPS coordinates in place of screen coordinates, the map becomes the territory. ////// In recent years the use of the map as a way of organising information, the cross pollination with ideas of psychogeography & the derive, the birth of "locative media" & cheap mobile technology, as well as a growing consciousness of public & media space have all contributed to make this phase possible. i propose a vision"d'auteur" for this locative media. to continue the work begun in "dani maeda .." and "alone" and to create a new narrative piece. the piece seeks a place somewhere between theatre and the novel. As you walk you hear voices - dialogues between the characters or monologues - you are privy to the inner world of those who passed before you in this space. it will consist of a similar narrative structure as "alone" - a series of hotspots (narrative points) with a defined track between them indicated by a device i call the 'narrative compass' - instead of pointing north it points to the next narrative point in the defined order. the dialogues are related to gps coordinates (lat,long) and given a narrative order. these narrative points may be complemented by ambient areas (as in "dani maeda ...") located on the pathways or beside them, in bars or hotels - where texts or sounds marginal to the story may be located. the dialogues are being written by pedro soler & linked to gps points. they will then be performed by actors for the realisation of the piece. /// the work is designed to be experienced in Moscow (though i also envisage a scaled down installation version) wearing a pair of light headphones connected to a PDA (handheld computer) that is equipped with GPS. on the screen of the PDA is a simple arrow that points in the direction of the next point defined in the narrative. the program would need to find the current GPS coordinates and compare them to a database of audio files organised according to gps coordinates & narrative order. if it finds a correspondance it will play the file and move the arrow to indicate the direction of the next narrative point (this arrow movement needs to be continually updated as the user moves around). So each soundfile has a GPS location and a order number. You have to follow this order -> if u have not passed point 3 u cannot access point 4. a second level of audio would be non-narrative - i.e the same as the first type but without the ordering mechanism. the two layers of narrative may overlap at times. ideally, the application & soundfiles should be downloadable and installable in any pda. the tools developed for this project will be freely available. currently studying the technology to be used. /