Unlocking Landscapes Using Locative Media

This interdisciplinary research is situated within the practice and discourse of locative media at the confluence of art, location and technology. The practice-based research project aims to use the arts to address a crisis arising from rapid redevelopment in a marginal coastal town – Hayle, Cornwall. A recent supermarket build on a prominent Hayle heritage quay led to UNESCO’s threat to de-list the entire Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site, awarded only in 2006. Research builds on recent findings on the link between increased sense of self and community cohesion through connection to heritage and participation in the arts. Media artists, participants and theorists have indicated that locative media experiences can promote connection to landscapes and their histories. However, these claims are unsubstantiated by empirical research to date. This research seeks to redress that through systematic analysis (unusual in the arts and therefore distinct).

The main research question posed was: Does locative media allow people to develop a deeper connection with landscape and, if so, how? A smartphone deep map app was created – an evocation of a Cornish post-industrial landscape assembled from audio memory traces, sound and visual images revealed using GPS and the moving body. The Hayle Churks app weaves past and present, absence and presence and digital content into physical place.

The Hayle Churks app is a research tool and published creative practice that received a national award in 2014. The empirical data is an original contribution to knowledge. Additional contributions include a timeline – a historical overview of the relationship between locative media art and emerging technologies and a deep map app reference tool for artists. The research explores the role of immersion and embodiment and how recording and listening to audio and voice performance affect immersion.

Readers of this thesis are encouraged to access the Hayle Churks smartphone app prior to and during reading.