Killing time during Ken Burns

(9/29/09 UPDATES at bottom)

I know I should be watching The National Parks: America's Best Idea with rapt attention, but I find myself able to multi-task just fine. So tonight I've been exploring Yellowstone via Google Earth -- flying through the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, looking for bison in the open fields, being underwhelmed by the geysers (note to self: some things are better photographed from the ground than from space).

But I was surprised to stumble across this 3D building.

If you've been there, you'll know it's the beautiful Old Faithful Inn, just steps away from its namesake geyser.

So now I'm wondering...what other 3D buildings are there in National Parks? I flew to other parts of Yellowstone with no luck. I went to my favorite lodges in Glacier NP, but only saw grainy rooftops. I'm sure the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are in 3D (everything in New York is in 3D now, isn't it?), but what other monuments, lodges or national icons are in 3D in our National Parks?

Go hunting and let me know.

UPDATE:
Here are some other good 3D renderings from national parks.  First...Devil's Tower National Monument in Utah.

This one surprised me...from Mesa Verde in Arizona:

And, of course, Mt Rushmore in South Dakota.  Even in person, this place is a little creepy.  It's even stranger in Google Earth:

So what else is out there?  Keep looking and let me know...

One good Yosemite tale

The first episode of the long-awaited National Parks documentary from Ken Burns premiered tonight on PBS featuring, almost exclusively, two parks: Yosemite and Yellowstone.

Watching it reaffirmed what I've known for a while: that I really need to go see Yosemite. Visiting Yellowstone with my family a few years ago was life-changing. I hear Yosemite can have the same effect.

So now I'm going hunting for Yosemite placecasts, and the first thing I ran across was a nice bit of audio storytelling from the National Parks Conservation Association. In 2007 and 2008, it produced a well-done series of podcasts about parks across the country. The first episode was about Buffalo Soldiers in Yosemite. Apparently, while the park was under state jurisdiction (before it became a national park), a regiment of african-american soldiers guarded the area from locals who weren't happy about the land being so stringently protected. I have a feeling this tension will be a theme of the whole Ken Burns series.

In fact, the ranger featured in this podcast, Shelton Johnson is also quoted extensively in the PBS series. He dresses up as a Buffalo Soldier and surprises visitors with the stories of what the park was like "back then" and with the fact that African-Americans were involved in the early history of this place. At one point, Johnson says that African-American visitors find this bit of living history especially welcoming in a place where they didn't expect to see many other non-white visitors.

(That was a point I hadn't really thought about before this week, when I was interviewing the superintendent of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area. I'm working on a radio story about school kids taking canoe trips down the river in St. Paul and one of the things that Superintendent Paul Labovitz told me is that the visitors to his park are much more diverse than other parks...mostly by virtue of proximity to an urban area. He said the park service is aware of who is visiting its parks and wants to make them more appealing and welcoming to all groups.)

I don't know why NPCA stopped making it's Park Stories podcast after only a handful of episodes, but I wish it would start again. They were good introductions to various parks without trying to be exhaustive overviews. Instead, they highlighted one particular story in each place. I know there are thousands more stories just as interesting that need to be told. Audio is a great -- and relatively easy -- way to tell those stories.




(photo from NPCA by Jim Williams)

Audio guides: the public is skeptical

I just stumbled across the best audio tour-related rant I've seen yet on the Internet.

Loic Tallon is a museum designer who blogs at Musematic.  Back in June, he titled a post: "I never take audio guides. I can't stand them."  This wasn't his personal opinion, but an oft-overheard line from museum visitors who have been burned too often by bad or poorly-implemented audio guides. 

While he first tried to argue with the people who said this, he came to realize the sentiment was widespread enough to indicate a real problem with the way this technology is maturing. From the post:

I’ve come to believe that it’s not the visitor’s fault that they can’t stand audio guides. They’re actually the victims in all this; the museums are the culprits.

Let me explain how I see it.... A visitor arrives at a museum and, before breaching the gallery threshold, is obliged into an early decision.  “Would you like to take the audio guide?” the museum asks.

It seems like a simple question.  But if we stop and look at this from the visitor’s perspective – a reasonable action considering audio guides are a visitor service – they’re probably asking themself: “Well, why in the devil is there an audio guide, and why should I take it?  Especially if they want me to pay extra for it!”

Time was when just having "multi-media" technology at an exhibit was novel.  It isn't anymore.  You have to be purposeful in explaining why a visitor needs or might want to consider taking the audio tour.  At some places, it is essential (Tallon refers to the excellent audio guide at Alcatraz, for example)...at most others, it is a nice supplement to other interpretation already in place.  So museums have to tell visitors what the advantage of the guide is.

...if we provide no information, and simply advertise to visitors that ‘audio guides are available’, we’re actually encouraging visitors to draw on personal notions of whether they like audio guides in order to decide whether to take it or not.    

Tallon also reiterates what I gather is a guiding mantra amongst museum techies: "It's not about the technology." Here's my favorite part of the post:

Like the cinema, the audio guides itself is not, and should not be presented as, the deal clincher.  I know that ‘sexy’ technologies like multimedia tours, and IPodTouches/IPhones currently act as deal clinchers, but like an I-Max, after a couple of experiences, I’m sure the novelty will wear off.    

In this funny and insightful piece, Tallon stops just short of what I think is the logical conclusion of his argument:  The content rules and the presentation matters.  People are tired of sticking speakers in their ears and hearing boring or silly factoids about the stuff around them.  If audio is going to help your exhibit, it needs to take advantage of the power of the medium: voice, story, music, pacing and even -- gasp -- silence.  Reading a guidebook into a microphone doesn't cut it anymore.  Interviewing the curator about the exhibit won't do it. Visitors expect, and deserve, an engaging experience -- and an explanation up front of what that experience will be like.

One more thought on Museums.

When it comes to creating place-specific audio, museums are leading the way.  They are WAY out in front of historic sites, tourist boards and chambers of commerce in creating audio enhancements to the visitor experience.  This makes sense.  Museums are hyper-planned, self-contained environments that are designed by professional interpreters (many of whom blog and write and meet about new technologies all the time).  The most successful trends in placecasting will no doubt have their roots in museum interpretation.  All the same, I'm most interested in what is happening out of doors.

To me, the exciting part about the idea of placecasting is meeting people where they are at...in the real world.  When there are no interpretive signs or tour guides around, mobile audio takes on new importance and new potential.

More from Cleveland: Crittercasting

After posting a maybe less-than-flattering video about Cleveland a few days ago, I'm pleased to say there is positive placecasting going on in the Forest City, too (seriously, that's an actual Cleveland nickname).

The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo just announced its new cell phone audio tour is live and ready to take your call as you wait for that critter over there to wake up. Like most museum tours, it's not really a tour at all, just a series of sign posts telling you which number to punch into your phone. There are 33 stops at the moment (according to this press release), though the medium is inherently expandable.

Though I'm not in Cleveland at the moment, I dialed the number while watching my own cat sleep. After a quick welcome and not-so-quick advertisement for a local cell phone company, I was asked to entering a stop number. I chose the numbers at random because I can't find a list of the stops anywhere -- including the zoo Web site, which makes no mention of the audio tour at all (but why should it if its meant to be listened to on-site?). The items I heard were interesting, brief and specific to the animal or building at that location. Each tells a story -- why the animal is endangered, or how it is cared for by vets -- that was concise and didn't seem likely to duplicate the signs around the exhibit. One stop I heard even featured a zoo employee talking about her favorite memory of a given zoo building -- a nice, genuine touch. My cat, by the way, remained asleep throughout.

The main presenter is a voice actor who is full of energy. But my main beef with this project is that he seems to make up a new cartoonish voice for each stop along the way. I found most of these phony accents to be over-the-top and distracting from what were otherwise decent scripts with good information. Maybe these voices are meant to engage kids...but without any sort of character development (and who has time for that?), they just seem random and unnecessary.

Fortunately, most tracks invite feedback from the listener, telling them to press a button to leave just this kind of comment. This acknowledges the new and experimental nature of the project, and also made use of the dynamic possibilities of the cell phone medium, which got me thinking...

Cell phone tours have the obvious disadvantage of poor audio quality (compared to podcasts delivered on mp3 players) and air-time charges. But they hold a distinct advantage in their ability to be updated quickly and universally. Indeed, the zoo's marketing manager, SueAllen, told the Plain Dealer newspaper, "these can change on a daily basis." And you can understand why this is important to a zoo, where exhibits are changing all the time based on the weather and the health of the animals (this isn't so much a problem in art museums where the sculptures rarely have to visit the vet). A change to any stop on cell phone tour will be realized by every single visitor who calls the number after the change is made. In contrast, any site trying to dynamically update podcasts that users download ahead of time will face problems with all the "stale" versions already downloaded.

Another very slick feature of the Cleveland zoo cell phone tour is the option to see behind-the-scenes video. At stop number three, the narrator (in an inexplicably German accent) told me to press the * button to receive a text message link to a video of a gorilla getting an ultra sound. It worked like a charm. A few seconds later, I was watching a YouTube video of this remarkable procedure on my iPhone. This is truly value-added content and the possibilities for placecasting are magnificent.

While I still think clear-crafted audio is the key to placecasting success, optional video can allow visitors into places they'd never get to see otherwise. Guide By Cell is the production company behind this project. It caters to non-profits and seems to have a lot of tricks up its sleeve.

If you know of other zoo audio tours, please let me know.

Placecasting battlefields

At it's most basic, I describe placecasting to people as having your own personal park ranger whispering in your ear as you walk around a place.

I found the most literal application of that description so far when I started previewing the audio tour podcasts at CivilWarTraveler.com.  This company has partnered with the National Park Service at Gettysburg, Harpers Ferry, Antietam, Appomattox Court House and other sites in and near Virginia to make audio tours of certain important parts of the vast battlefields (think the Peach Orchard at Gettysburg or the Burnside Bridge at Antietam).


The free podcasts on this site feature on-site recordings of real rangers and historians talking about the very spot where you are standing.  They point out features if the land around you, and off in the distance.  They describe how the battle progressed around this point and then they tell you (roughly) how to get to the next tour stop.  A printable map is available -- and essential -- for each tour.    


I love that these are real rangers steeped in the history of the place, and I really love the way they point out the physical features around you.  The ranger at Gettysburg's Peach orchard talks about this peach trees the National Park Service just planted there, and then he directs your eyes to the important Little Round Top hill off in the distance.  If you visited here and only had interpretive signs to read, you would miss so much. 

Civil War buffs will love these podcasts for the specific value they add to each location they cover.  People NOT already into battle history, however, could have a hard time listening to a whole tour (they range from 20 to 60 minutes, though most run about half an hour).  This is because compelling storytelling is not necessarily the strength of rangers and historians.  In the couple of tours I previewed, the tour guides throw a LOT of facts about distances, geography, casualties and regiment numbers at the listener without necessarily couching them in an immersive narrative about how the battle progressed.  But being live and off-the-cuff helps keep the energy up (as opposed to scripted podcasts read in a studio).


The audio production is also only so-so.  They're recorded outdoors on-site, where wind noise is always a problem.  Some of the tour guides also pop a lot of p's as they talk into the microphone.  Both of these things can be hard on listeners after a while, especially when listening in headphones.  The rangers also sometimes gloss right past the instructions for getting to the next location, so the printed map is a must. 

Next week marks the anniversary of the Battle of Antietam (Sept. 17, 1862), and there will be a lot of rangers, historians and other interpreters on the battlefield.  There's no substitute for that kind of personal contact.  But if you have to walk the hallowed ground on your own, these are some of the most effective place-centered audio tours I have found yet.  

(Photos from National Park Service)

Today from Twitter: trying again

Searching "audio tour" on Twitter today reveals these gems:

• A couple of commercial audio tour producers are advertising their product on Twitter today. One company, UK-based HeartBeat Guides, sells mp3 audio guides of popular tourist cities all over the world. Their product is clearly aimed at tourists and a typical download appears to be around $10. From the site: "HeartBeatguides are a magical mix of atmosphere and vital information for the visitor." The samples offered do appear to have excellent audio production (which, strangely, seems to be a rare in commercial audio tours), full of ambient sound. But I can't tell how well the mp3s actually guide visitors through the city. It appears to present guide-book style general information in audio form without embracing a particular place. So maybe it's better for pre-travel listening or listening to on a bus or in the hotel before a day of adventure. But it's very hard to tell these things from a sample. (via iPod_Travel)
• The other self-tweeting company is called Visual Travel Tours. It also sells tours of spots around the globe, but they are much more multi-media. Customers can download printable text and photos, or audio/video guides to run on your iPhone -- then there's the happy medium which includes text and video, but no audio. The samples indicate the audio production here is more rudimentary with a single narrator reading a script. But the information presented seems to be more directly tied to place, and I think this has to do with the writer. VTT gets experts on a given place to write the scripts, so there is a more personal touch. I want to talk more with the creators about this very interesting placecasting model. (via VTravelTours)
• For the second time in a row, my Twitter search has brought up a mention of Civil War audio tours. In both cases, the tours referenced were by CivilWarTraveler.com, I'm a Civil War buff myself, and I would have LOVED to have placecasts of the battlefields I visited back in high school. These are very good and I'll write more about them tomorrow.
• People have been taking audio tours of Prestongrange since 2004. What is Prestongrange? "Prestongrange is a site of major importance in the story of Scotland's Industrial Revolution." The tour includes stops at a brickworks, a kiln and a cornish beam engine. What is a cornish beam engine? Look it up. The audio tour seems pretty important to the site, given how promanently it's featured on the Prestongrange Web site. The narrator is John Bellany, "one of Scotland's most noted living artists, who was born in nearby Port Seton." So next time we're in Scottland, let's use the digital revolution to help us better understand the industrial one. (via deb_max)
• Finally, it looks like today, 9/10, is the day for audio touring in Istanbul. A creative group called C-U-M-A (which also appears to organize flash mobs, among other pursuits) is handing out MP3 players so people can tour the city at certain times today. The audio tour doesn't seem to be available for download, but it sounds interesting. It "intends to frame Istanbul not just from an artist's point of view but through the insights and voices of designers, urban planners and artisans. Wish I could be there. (via evrenuzervb)

And that's it for today's Twitter hits. I'll try again in a few days. Happy touring. And I'm always looking for more tour recommendations.

The wheels on the theater go...

I love it when artists embrace place.

The current show at New York City's Foundry Theater, "Provenance of Beauty", is about the South Bronx, peformed in the South Bronx -- on a bus that is rolling through the South Bronx.

THE PROVENANCE OF BEAUTY is a poetic travelogue performed on a bus touring the South Bronx. As we travel the streets of the neighborhood, Rankine's evocative text points out and reflects upon the sites that pass by outside the windows.

THE PROVENANCE OF BEAUTY. from Sunder Ganglani on Vimeo.

It looks like there is a mix of live action and recorded media. From their Web site:

The audience boards the bus in Spanish Harlem, puts on headphones and for 90 minutes eavesdrops on the voice - both live and recorded - of this historic place. PROVENANCE is an experience that both responds to and redoubles the landscape - its sites, history, present and future - mapping out a poetic cartography of a neighborhood - of any neighborhood - in its eternal state of evolution.

Good placecasting ought to be an artform. I love the sound of an innovative project like this.

Village Voice profiles the project here. And one of my favorite NPR reporters, Robert Smith, has a radio story about the performance on All Things Considered this afternoon.

**UPDATE: Listening to the NPR story this evening, it sounds like this is really more audio tour than performance. It's full or stories about the people and buildings along the route. In fact, it sounds a lot like the ArtShare Northeast Minneapolis tour that I've written about a couple times here: created by artists, full of oral histories, focus on an unexpected place. The big difference is that this one is on a bus. And that brings up a good point that Robert Smith makes in his story:

"It's a strange experience; the play is about the South Bronx, but we never get off the bus, never get to interact with the scenes we see. Much of the talk is about the issues of gentrification, but what could be more gentrifying than a brainy theater piece in a tour bus?"

Today from Twitter

What happens if I plug a couple placecasting terms into the Twitter search box to see what people are talking about today?

• I learn that the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia has made a nice audio tour of their museum for kids.  You can rent an iPod when you're there or download the tracks as MP3 for free before you go.  You can also hear the tracks easily on their Web site while you look at the images you'd see in the museum.  Each audio stop is brief and open-ended.  Most end with a question like "What do you think will happen next?"  (via ArtGalleryofNSW, image from their Web site)
• I see that both Cantigny Park and Museum in Illinois and the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development are apparently considering creating cell phone tours.  Today they asked Twitter followers for feedback.  Hey, Tennessee, I think audio touring would be a great way to develop your tourists!  (via McCormickMuseum and TNVacation)
• It seems Plan2Go -- which appears to be a travel agency in Cyprus -- has discovered that the Grand Canyon offers cell phone placecasts along the South Rim.  The tweet reads "Grand Canyon cell phone audio tour implented (sic)".  I can't tell how new the tours actually are, though the LA Times was excited about the first ones in 2008.  At any rate, it's all news to me and I'll make a point to dial up and review the tour someday soon.  Cyprus and the Grand Canyon are 7,070 miles apart.  Roughly. (via plan2go)
• Finally, I learn there is a company in Belgium that sells audio tours of Antwerp, Brugges and Maastricht for 6 euros.  It's called Head to Foot and its tweets lead me to believe the team spends a lot of time out of the office. There are lots of companies like this in Europe, which works out well because there are so many walkable cities there!  But I question how many are very well done...  What's your experience? (via headtofoot)

Those are my discoveries from the last few hours of tweets.  It just proves that, indeed, people all over the world are thinking about placecasting.

How not to placecast

Let's set audio aside for today and enjoy some recent gems of video placecasting:



(h/t Matt Weston)
And from my own backyard:



While these videos may fall short when it comes to interpretation, they nonetheless capture a genuine sense of place.

It's a good reminder that people's impression of place is rarely dictated by tourism bureaus. In fact, overly-polished place-propeganda can backfire against communities that aren't being honest about their true nature.  Irony, disappointment and surprise are all a part of the way we experience the world around us.  

I think to properly interpret a place to people in that place you have to recognize what they're really seeing, really hearing and maybe what they're really smelling.  Then you have to help them understand WHY their experience includes those things. 

For example, I'd love to make a walking tour of International Falls, Minnesota someday.  And the first item on the tour would be, "What's that smell?"  Not to insult the town, but to recognize the first question that is logically on every visitor's mind.  Once that's out of the way, the tour can proceed without distraction.  (The answer, by the way, has to do with two paper mills in town and the holding ponds where they store wet pulp.  But go to International Falls anyway, it's a great little town right next to Voyeageurs National Park.)