Reveil 24-hour live broadcast 2020

This Reveil stream, neoscenes’ sixth, is out the kitchen window listening to the ambient neighborhood sounds surrounding Delong Park, a new park-in-the-making, in Golden, Colorado. Nestled at the base of the west flank of South Table Mountain, the sounds are under the dampening influenced of the moment: coronavirus, lock-down, social-distancing, quarantine, and so on. The park sits at 1765 m / 5790 ft. In the immediate foreground is a “ditch” — an dis-used irrigation ditch that used to carry water from Clear Creek Canyon all the way to the Plains to the east for agriculture in this dry climate. Children use the ditch as a play area. The Park was once a strange-shaped concatenation of lots, perhaps two acres in total, with a house on it. For some reason the house was destroyed and the lot donated to the city. It’s been used by locals already on a regular basis for, yes, dog walking, but also, snowball fights, frisbee, soccer practice, and picnicking. Soon, however, the city will unveil a *plan* for the space, to make it an ‘official’ park in the city schema. Not much else going on!

The live microphone feed will include: local neighborhood car and dog-walker traffic; interspersed with the conversational cries of the black-billed magpie (Pica hudsonia), the hunting sounds of the occasional red-tail (Buteo jamaicensis) and Cooper’s (Accipiter cooperii) hawks, the territorial cries and pecking of the northern flicker (Colaptes auratus), and the cooing of the mourning doves (Zenaida macroura), along with a variety of other birds. There may be the occasional coyotes (Canis latrans) kicking up a racket, trying to seduce house dogs to come out and play (and get eaten)!

This feed is set-up by Dr. John Hopkins (aka neoscenes), a visual/sonic media artist, learning facilitator, info-space organizer. He holds a creative media practices PhD from La Trobe University/University of Technology Sydney, an MFA from the University of Colorado Boulder (where he studied film under renown experimental film-maker, Stan Brakhage), and a BSc in Geophysical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. His transdisciplinary research and workshops explore issues surrounding sustainable creative practices, systems thinking, networked & tactical media, distributed and community-based DIY and DIWO processes, networked creativity, and Temporary Autonomous Zones. His international media arts practice explores the role of energy in techno-social systems and the effects of technology on energized human encounter. He has taught across more than 20 countries and 60 higher education situations. He currently is translating geoscience data into natural language that the public might understand at the Colorado Geological Survey which, strangely enough, is now part of the aforementioned Colorado School of Mines.