What happens when people move through public space, listening to an electronic voice which is controlled by an invisible network of information systems? The work takes you on a drive through an abstract landscape in Google Earth. The piece is based in the ambivalent experience of using SatNav systems, on the one hand liberating, on the other hand making the driver dependent on orders by an intimate voice. The short story is based on sung SatNav instructions, and ends in a beautiful and touching apotheosis. The sound track is an original composition by Huba de Graaff and contains mobile sound effects. The audience is sitting still, but the music and the other audiopoints of- interest are moving. What you hear are symphony-orchestras passing by at 100 km an hour, and barking dogs and churchbells as well. All sound is moving from the front to the back of the concert hall, with a lot of Dopplereffect. The whole opera is situated on the highway. The Google Earth animation is by Esther Polak and Ivar van Bekkum. The visualisation is based on a GPS-track and animated directly in Google Earth, using its digital cartography as a worldwide, spatial opera-stage. Texts are sung by the Nederlands Kamerkoor. After an original idea by Esther Polak.
polakvanbekkum.nl/
