INTER//CONNECTED A FARM/ART DTOUR PROJECT PROPOSAL - RYAN DEWEY // GEOCOG
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
JUNE 2020
CONCEPT
INTER//CONNECTED
A FARM/ART DTOUR PROJECT PROPOSAL
RYAN DEWEY // GEOCOG
FARM/ART DTOUR - FERMENTATION FEST 2020
2
INTER//CONNECTED
INTRODUCTION
urban/rural conviviality in an edge environment
INTER//CONNECTED is a single-site installa- indicators of broader changes taking place,
tion of 16 telephones in 2 adjacent networks and Sauk County certainly fits the bill, as land
laid out in the pattern of a Sauk County Barn use and livelihood face a turning point as the
Quilt geometry, centered on City Park in county will either remain primarily agricultur-
Reedsburg, Wisconsin during the 2020 edition al, or will experience accelerated urbanization
of Fermentation Fest as part of the Farm/Art as nearby Madison Wisconsin sprawls out into
DTOUR driving tour of public art commissions. the countryside.
Drawing on the history of quilting bees as sites By overlaying the imagery of a patchwork quilt
for gossip, the party line as a site for eaves- onto the concept of the ecological patches of
dropping, and the kitchen table as a site for Wisconsin, a contrast intensifies at the edges
conversation, INTER//CONNECTED looks where the adjacency of urban and agricultural
at alternative forms of conviviality between communities meet in a urban-rural commons.
strangers during a time of social distancing.
Beyond a visual metaphor, the iconography of
Sauk County can be thought of as an ecological the quilt lends itself for reuse in wayfinding
edge in the framework of Richard Forman’s ty- signage along the network routes as well as
pology of ecological systems. Forman calls edg- marketing imagery to alert passersby to the
es a “canary in the mine” because they serve as experience.
3
FARM/ART DTOUR - FERMENTATION FEST 2020
BARN
QUILTS
Quilts employ a type
of tessellation that
resembles agricultur-
al land-use practices.
It is easy to think of the
countryside as a kind of
patchwork blanket of farm
fields because of the geometry of color blocked fields laid in an ar-
ray, but this patchwork is also an ecological concept. The patch and
the edge form the primary components of the Forman’s matrix, a
kind of interconnected ecological blanket spread out across land-
scapes.
Patchwork quilts are a type of quilt that is often associated with
resourcefulness, a characteristic that is also associated with rural
The patchwork agricultural communities. But quilts are not just thrown together;
patches are cut out of fabric and laid out into sets of elements that
quilt is an icon are then sewn together in patterned “blocks” before being incor-
of countryside porated into the blanket. Historic quilting circles known as quilting
bees were sites of conviviality for country communities, as well as
resourcefulness, sites for the transmission of knowledge, gossip, and friendship.
with marketing
Quilts are icons of country living, so it is no surprise that quilt im-
value for agery is extended into other graphic formats in rural communities
agri-tourism like the barn quilt. Barn quilts are murals painted on the exterior of
a barn, and often facing roadways which in the age of agri-tourism
has led to the organization of barn-quilt driving tours. Wisconsin
barn tour maps and itineraries are abundant on websites like barn-
4
INTER//CONNECTED
quiltinfo.com and saukprarie.com
- evidence of the marketing value of
barn quilts for farm tourism.
The quilt imagery for this project is
borrowed from a specific barn quilt in
Sauk County, the ringed star painted
by Lisa Evert for Sunnyslope Farm,
an organic dairy farm 38 miles south
of Reedsburg in Sauk City (E8517
City Rd. B, Sauk City, WI 53583).
5
FARM/ART DTOUR - FERMENTATION FEST 2020
RURAL TELEPHONY
& THE PARTY LINE
reviving a rural memory in the age of the cellphone
A party line is a type of network loop where mul- companies appealed to morality and personal
tiple households would share the same telephone etiquette to train users through films and comic
service. books that revealed the danger in disrespecting
other users and misusing the system. The party
Private lines require individual circuits for each line system had a number of limitations, but the
extension which was initially unaffordable in shared network also had advantages that could
many sparsely populated areas in the early days be exploited. One advantage was the ability to
of telephone networks. Party lines offered an af- communicate a message to all users of a party line
fordable option to connect farming communities system.
and rural areas.
Party lines continued until major telephone net-
Many households would share a single telephone works discontinued them by 2000. The party line
line, and if one person was using the telephone, remains a vivid memory in many rural agricultural
if anyone else on the party line circuit picked communities.
up their phone receiver, they could listed to the
conversation. Privacy was limited, eavesdrop- The multi-sensory experience of a rotary dial
ping was easy, and party lines were a source of telephone coupled with the novelty of a party line
gossip. Another problem with the party line was resurrect a cultural memory for all participants,
that you had to wait until the line was clear be- rural residents as well as visitors from the city.
fore you could place a call. Hardware adaptations,
selective ringing sequences, and usage policies
could not prevent eavesdropping, and telephone
6
INTER//CONNECTED
7
FARM/ART DTOUR - FERMENTATION FEST 2020
CIVIL DEFENSE
PHONES
Originally designed for closed networks, these new old stock
phones can be set up in ad hoc networks using spools of military
communications wire. The technology is simple and self-contained.
Signal power is supplied by a battery, while ringing voltage is gen-
erated with the magneto rotary dial.
8
INTER//CONNECTED
FIELD
MANUAL
Cellular and digital technology have replaced the infrastructure
necessary for party lines, and setting up temporary ad hoc net-
works without infrastructure requires a different sort of problem
solving akin to the temporary networks of military field opera-
tions during the early 20th century. Project knowledge for IN-
TER//CONNECTED comes from a variety of documents, including
this 1948 field manual.
9
FARM/ART DTOUR - FERMENTATION FEST 2020
10INTER//CONNECTED
A PHONE NETWORK
ON A QUILT PATTERN
Visitors encounter 16 phones arrayed in a radiating
starburst pattern around a neighborhood park, and
can use the phones to make a call to other passersby
in the vicinity for a socially distanced phone conver-
sation. If the call advances and the two passersby de-
cide to meet up for a drink, they can decide to meet
at one of the 16 sites, or they can walk to the center
of the quilt-grid, or coordinate to meet elsewhere
during peak festival hours.
The distribution pattern of the phone array matches
the extent of the imaginary barn quilt laid down onto
the city grid.
The overlay (left) is centered on City Park, a neigh-
borhood park in Reedsburg, Wisconsin. Through co-
ordination with festival programming, a suitable site
could be found in Sauk City.
11FARM/ART DTOUR - FERMENTATION FEST 2020
12INTER//CONNECTED
HARDWARE TEST
13FARM/ART DTOUR - FERMENTATION FEST 2020
NETWORK MAPS
a variety of circuit patterns options for one line route
The infrastructure of a phone network is linear, The following diagrams illustrate the variety of
and the branching of circuits can be modeled with options for circuit design:
a series of simple lines that are abstracted away
from landscape features. Top Left: two nested circular networks of eight
phones each move from the perimeter of the star
For this network map, the blocking of the barn to the interior ring.
quilt provides insight into the geometry of the
network, and an overlay of nodes onto the nine- Top Right: two networks of eight phones each
block site helps to visualize the types of networks cross along the diagonal axis of the main star.
that could be laid out. In these maps, the City Park
in Reedsburg is the example central city block. Bottom Left: four networks of four phones each
form a horseshoe pattern of connections along
Because of the grid layout of city streets, the se- the perimeter of the star.
lected network will have a line-route path that
differs from the network diagram. The path that Bottom Right: all phones laid out atop an aeri-
the actual wires will take will follow the rectilin- al view of the city blocks. The network can take
ear street blocks. The network map in this case is multiple shapes, but the line route path will likely
to visualize the placement of phones and to un- follow the street grid.
derstand the network topography.
14INTER//CONNECTED
15FARM/ART DTOUR - FERMENTATION FEST 2020
talking
with
strangers?
16INTER//CONNECTED
CONVIVIALITY
fostering conversations between city & country residents
The festival is a kind of equalizing event where handset, rotates a simple rotary dial to activate
people from all walks of life attend and expect the call. Once the call is made, seven connected
to have a good experience. Most people go to phones ring on seven different street corners
events for fun, and so it’s likely that they’re also (out of line-of-sight) and festival participants
coming with an open mind, ready to try some- and passersby have the opportunity to answer
thing new. the phone and have a conversation.
Everyday we have conversations with strangers, Each phone booth has a set of instructions print-
at the market, at the train station, when we order ed on a vinyl map that help participants get a
a cup of coffee. These kinds of conversations are conversation going.
transactional with clearly defined roles and so-
cial norms, so if you know the rules it’s not very The primary questions are simple:
threatening to talk to strangers in this context.
Where are you from?
INTER//CONNECTED provides a context for
people to have conversations with total strang- How are you doing?
ers to get to know someone in a way that might
(People know how to take it from there.)
end up in actual friendship. The format is spe-
cifically not transactional; the only goal is to get If a conversation goes well, participants can
strangers talking. choose to meet up for a conversation and a beer
at one of the phone stations near local food mar-
All it takes is a willingness to pick up the phone.
kets participating in Fermentation Fest, or meet
A person stops at one of the phones, picks up the for an outdoor and socially distanced face-to-
face conversation in the park.
17FARM/ART DTOUR - FERMENTATION FEST 2020
PARTY LINE PHONE UNITS
Quantity 16
(+4 backup units)
EQUIPMENT
ACOUSTIC HOODS
Quantity 16
(+4 backup units)
Add bottom shelf
Wrap with
barn quilt vinyl
graphic
Anchor to ce-
ment sidewalks
COMMUNICATIONS WIRE
Quantity 12
spools
(7,800 feet)
18INTER//CONNECTED
NOSTALGIA & FEASIBILITY
budget limitations open possibilities for enhanced experiences
It is not just the party line that has disappeared. project budgets has an orientation that doesn’t
As cell phones became ubiquitous, the phone fit well inside of an acoustic hood. In searching
booth and the payphone began to disappear for suitabble weatherproof boxes, the experi-
from street corners and residential land lines ence of seeing and using a vintage phone started
have approached near extinction. to fade into the background. Pole mounting just
can’t reproduce the experience of sitting at a
The iconography of the phone handset remains, kitchen table and talking on the phone.
and many people still have memories of making
phone calls on actual public phones. There is still Placing small kitchen tables on street corners
something unifying in our collective experience throughout the festival location increases the
of telephone conversations that this project likelihood that people will actually engage with
seeks to leverage. The nostalgia of picking up a these phones. Festival visitors constantly look
old style ringing phone is enough to picque the for seating, and the sight of a table with chairs
curiosity of passersby, and the act of picking up will be welcomed by all.
the phone will create a memorable tactile expe-
rience. The placement of a kitchen table in a high traffic
area will invite participants to sit and linger.
This project views the telephone and the conver-
sation as familiar social materials that connect When the phone rings, someone will answer it.
us to the collective sense of community that we
have come to crave in an era of social distancing. Wrapping the table with a vinyl graphic of the
barn quilt motif would take this to the next lev-
Originally this project was conceived with out- el, resulting in a table surface that operates as a
door mounting in acoustic hooded booths (left, secondary communication channel, a map of the
center), but the style of phone that fits within the network, and a thematic icon for the experience.
19FARM/ART DTOUR - FERMENTATION FEST 2020
• quantity 16
• 36”x36”x30”
• orange powder coat
• vinyl map
• 64 chairs (four per table)
• 16 cake domes (weather proofing)
20INTER//CONNECTED
A KITCHEN TABLE
ON EVERY CORNER
prompting impromptu experiences
Bright kitchen tables with empty chairs are a en table is a site of chit-chat. The three of these
kind of social bait in the festival context. Ev- experiences converging on 16 street corners
eryone looks for a seat at some point during an scattered through a festival hotspot produce a
outdoor event, and the sight of a table will lure visual density that pulls passersby into a mem-
passersby into pausing for a moment. The place- orable experience, and hopefully one where the
ment of a phone on the table insights curiosity social barrier of the city-country divide is over-
and participants will read instructions printed looked because the interlocuters are out of sight
on the table top vinyl decal. of one another.
The haptic memory of sitting at a kitchen table As an edge environment, Sauk County needs a
(perhaps at your grandparent’s farm) is height- forum for discussion, and interpersonal relation-
end by the sound of a ringing land line phone. ships are where authentic conversations take
place. INTER//CONNECTED provides the infra-
You can’t resist, and you pick up the receiver and structure and the opportunity for participants to
instinctively say “hello” - it’s a stranger, there is have an open mind in conversations with strang-
no caller ID, you cannot forward it to voicemail. ers.
There is a thrill in the unknown of a telephone
call. Conversation is essential in human life. Some of
the best conversations happen when two people
Conversation happens naturally when people discover each other by chance. INTER//CON-
encounter each other. Honest conversation hap- NECTED primes this experience by bringing to-
pens naturally when there is no agenda. The ru- gether strangers for impromptu conversations
ral memory of the party line is a site of conversa- that hopefully end in friendships.
tion. The rural icon of the quilting bee is a site of
conviviality. The domestic experience of a kitch-
21FARM/ART DTOUR - FERMENTATION FEST 2020
EXPENSES
22INTER//CONNECTED
TIMELINE
23questions:
RYAN DEWEY
RYANDEWEY.ORG
GEOCOG.ORG
RYAN.DEWEY@CASE.EDU
+1.216.272..0238You can also read
