LYDSPOR is the result of a collaboration between Catch – Center for Art, Design and Technology, AIR Lab at the IT University of Copenhagen, The Museums of Elsinore and Bylab. It is a part of the ongoing project The Augmented City.

LYDSPOR is a new sound experience in Elsinore. LYDSPOR conveys stories other than those we are used to hearing about Elsinore and uses sonic augmentation/AR to engage the audience. 

LYDSPOR expands the understanding of the city through sonic sensory experiences, creating an emotional connection to the city’s past. Sound is experienced instantly, but is also ephemeral and temporary – unless it is stored it will disappear immediately. What if the sound left traces that we could listen to through technology? What if we could expand our listening and enable us to listen to the sounds of the city from 400 years ago? LYDSPOR explores what it would be like to listen to the past. 

The sound walk consists of three parts, one audio walk in Hestemøllestræde and two physical, interactive sound installations by Kongekajen and the Museum of Elsinore.

The project is based on a year-long exploration into how to design sonic sensory experiences that create an emotional connection to the past in today’s Elsinore. 

The metaverse
The metaverse and the technologies that blur the distinction between our physical and virtual spaces are highly in focus today. The metaverse is often linked to technologies such as virtual and augmented reality – technologies that expand our physical reality. Augmented reality is the experience of various digital layers in our physical reality, for example POKEMON GO. It is often visual layers which are implemented as augmented realities, but in LYDSPOR sound is used as digital layers expanding the city space. 

Everyday stories
When turning to the history of Elsinore you often find a dominating focus on kings and wars. LYDSPOR represents a desire to tell stories about ordinary people. The focus is on the past everyday life and the sound of it. It can be easier to connect to the past if you can identify with the people involved. At Kongekajen you can experience the sound of “Sanden ” which was a neighborhood that once existed in Elsinore housing inhabitants from all over Europe, especially the Netherlands. The inhabitants immegrated to Elsinore due to good trading opportunities and helped build Kronborg. The neighbourhood was bombed under the Swedish attack in 1658.  

Experience LYDSPOR
Visit the soundinstallation in Elsinore using the map and the download link here.

LYDSPOR is sponsored by WS Audiology.

The City of Helsingborg and the Municipality of Elsinore have initiated a new transdisciplinary IoT project – Over Sundet (Across the Strait). 

The first result of this collaboration is the project Extended Senses, which is developed based on an Open Call from Spring 2021 where we were looking for projects that show new ways of working with technology and culture together with cities. We chose to work with the Danish art collective Healthy Mind Tech consisting of Paula Petcu, Troels Nielsen, Martín Basterrechea, Alistair Clewlow and Kim Ng, and the Swedish art duo; Johan Gerlinder and Emil Berzén. 

Extended Senses is an artistic collaboration between one Swedish and one Danish art collective and the two cities Helsingør and Helsingborg. Together they have been exploring how sensors can be implemented in a city through an artistic, collective process providing agency about data and sensors to citizens. The work can be experienced through a light installation exhibited in April at Kulturværftet, Helsingør and in June during the international city expo H22 at Dunkers Kulturhus, Helsingborg and online through the experience of the citizens involved in sensing the cities. Besides providing both cities with an artistic experience we hope to form new connections and understandings of what it means to be a human in relation to nature and the city.

Distributed Mind

The Danish art collective built a new sensor system for the two cities to be distributed amongst citizens. Through workshops held in March and April they teach citizens how to set up and read the sensors. The citizens are an important part of the work and their experiences are integrated in the work; on a website they describe the experience of gathering the data and learning to listen to and observe the city through an extended sensor system. All of a sudden they are not only experiencing the city and the nature of the city through their existing senses, eyes, ears etc., they are given a new set of sensors to observe and experience with. The citizens take the sensors home and thus they’ll be distributed making the data flow from every corner of the city as a network of thoughts – a distributed mind.

A big thank you to the students at U / Nord HTX and BGK ArtLab in Helsingør and the kids from CoderDojo Helsingborg. Their commitment and engagement to the sensors gives life to the installation and an insight into possible futures.

How do you feel? 

The artists are furthermore investigating if there’s a correlation between the data registered by the sensors and how people feel. Our feelings are generally not considered to be valid data, but what happens if you mix the feelings from a city with data collected from nature? What picture will we be able to draw of the collective living in a city? 

You are welcome to add your current state of mind and become part of the artwork and artistic investigation. Please follow the QR-code down below and it will take you to a web application where you can register how you feel and you will be able to see an immediate transformation of the aesthetic appearances of the light installation, when you add your data and become an active part of the emotional system of the city.

Pulsating heart

The data from the citizens is streamed live to the central installation created by the Swedish artists where it is translated to pulsating light in bright colors. The light installation will thus constitute the heart of the installation and be an abstract portrait of the city and all the information provided from the sensors. The installation is exhibited in the cultural centers of each city, Kulturværftet and Dunkers Kulturhus, where it can be experienced by citizens and tourists alike. Through the experience of the light installation, we want people to gain an understanding of data and sensors and how this can expand our understanding of our surrounding nature. We want to create an engaging installation that creates a feeling of agency and involvement in relation to data collection and the future city.

Artistic Collaboration
The art collectives have been working closely together throughout the project period extending their artistic practices and creative businesses to new levels. The Swedish art collective consists of Johan Gelinder and Emil Berzén. Both have a background in interaction design and are creating aesthetic experiences by building bridges between technology, design and art. Paula Petcu, Troels Nielsen, Martin Basterrechea, Alastair Clewlow and Kim Ng are all a part of Healthy Mind Tech, the Danish art collective. They investigate how digital technology can make people feel better with the combination of art, biology and technology. 

City Collaboration and Development

Helsingør and Helsingborg are two cities aiming to develop the local, creative sector. Both cities experience that entrepreneurs in the cultural sector have difficulties developing new innovative ideas that have the potential to grow and are visible on an international stage. The best ideas are usually only realized at the local level – in this case either in Helsingør or in Helsingborg. The two cities want to provide entrepreneurs in the cultural sector with increased exposure and the experience on how to scale up an idea and a larger network in Denmark and Sweden. Therefore, the two cities have established a partnership to improve the opportunities for artistic innovation and entrepreneurship in the cultural sector – across the strait. Extended Senses is the first result of this collaboration.

The project is funded by the HH-collaboration, a common strategy for Helsingør and Helsingborg that wants to develop quality of life and growth in the region around the northern strait of Øresund.

Future Sustainable Theater is a collaborative project between Catch, Malmö University, Helsingør Teater and Passage Festival. 

Helsingør Teater and Passage Festival are currently investigating how theater can become more sustainable. To support them in the process we teamed them up with a group of students from the interaction design master program at Malmö University, who investigated what the future sustainable theater looks like. Theater as we know it requires a lot of resources – human, technical and material resources, and transportation resources if the theater is touring. By investigating current initiatives around the world of how theater can be practiced in a more sustainable way, this project focuses on developing new design proposals for a Future Sustainable Theater. What needs to change and what do we need to keep for it to still be recognised as theater? And what role might technology play?

The project approaches sustainability from an artistic and aesthetic viewpoint. It is the main belief that by sensing and accessing the world from a poetic rather than a rational perspective, we might be able to develop a sense of connectedness with nature and the planet we inhabit. It is therefore important to cherish the artistic practice of theater, and focus on developing a sustainable format for this art genre. 

The project has resulted in multiple short videos that can be combined to one longer video depicting future scenarios of The Future Sustainable Theater. You can watch all of them here on the site. The project will furthermore be presented at the conference “NORDIC STREET Sustainability of the Arts”, which will take place from the 9th to the 11th of June 2022 in Helsingør and Helsingborg in the context of the H22 City Expo. 

Scenario: Futures shaping art / art shaping futures

Through a series of articles and interviews, this publication attempts to showcase how art and the future interrelate in various ways. How, for instance, can art help us understand the possible future trajectories of scientific and technological development? How does art help us to think about the (often hidden) structures of power and agency that affect our lives? Why and how is art (specifically sci-fi literature) being used to futureproof organisational strategy? Why do we need both utopian and dystopian narratives to give us caution and hope for the future? How can art bring futures studies to life through immersive experiences, and what will the future role of museums and cultural heritage be in a more digitalised and interconnected world?

Together with Nicklas Larsen, Senior Advisor and Head of Initiatives from The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies and Katrine Pedersen, Head of Education at Arken Museum of Modern Art, Catch has initiated this edition of Scenario to bring focus to the innovative space between art and science. Scenario is a quarterly research report engaging in major global themes, always examined through a futurist lens. The reports are published by The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies . 

The report features a number of art and tech projects realised at Catch. 

The report is from October 2021 and is available online and in print. Find it here. 

Catch is collaborating with the Section of landscape architecture and planning at University of Copenhagen who are running a course centered around the historical city and landscapes around Elsinore. Catch will be exhibiting the student’s projects from 28th of April to 31st of August. The exhibition will contain both a physical installation resembling the historical development in the landscape surrounding Elsinore and short audio guides about the landscape.  

During Spring 2022 a group of students studying landscape architecture at University of Copenhagen will be doing field studies in Elsinore on different locations such as the harbor, the gardens of Marienlyst, the private back yards in the city center, as well as in Catch’s space at Kulturværftet. The end goal is to build a historical installation, a sort of timeline, showing a part of Elsinore with focus on both sustainability and on how the relationship between human and nature has developed since the ice age until now, also including a look into the future. 

When you work with sustainability it requires having a long perspective. When the term was introduced in the UN’s Brundtland report from 1987, sustainability referred to living in a way not compromising future generations socially, economically and in terms of resources. As a landscape architecture education we are concerned with the question of how we can create an ecologically sustainable, just and inclusive development of our cities and landscapes in the future. How can physical cities and landscapes contribute to connecting humans and other living organisms so we can live side by side? Being a historical city, Elsinore provides a rich experiential archive, where we can learn about how humans have shaped the landscape and the city and lived with animals, plants, soil, water and changing climate conditions all influencing maritime life, gardenart, city development and welfare architecture. This makes Elsinore an exemplary site for providing historical depth to the discussion about sustainable design in the future. 

Today nature is under transformation and we know more and more about the consequences of exploiting nature’s resources and changing the landscape and the climate. How is this visible in the landscape of Elsinore?  

The exhibition is made by: Charlotte Liv Houmann Christensen, Sofie Møller Dissing, Nicoline Sciuto Hammer, Lærke Frida Schiøtt Jensen, Simone Skovdal Kejser, Laila Larsen Kildesgaard, Isabella Ljudmille Konge, Katinka Pi Madsen, Selma Viola Mallan, Ida Balslev Pedersen, Sine Waltersdorf Viager Smed (students) in collaboration with Richard Hare, Svava Riesto, Henriette Steiner og Lærke Sophie Keil (teachers).

In conversation about possible futures

Techies & Artist is a podcast series in four episodes delving into questions concerning emerging technologies. We want to dive deeper into how these technologies shape our communities, our realities, our democracies and our planet now and in the future. And investigate where we have the possibilities to affect our technological futures. To frame these discussions, we have invited techies, artists and scientists to take part in the conversations and bring together knowledge from their respective fields.

The podcast series is developed in collaboration with fellow hosts Katrine K. Pedersen, Head of Education and Art and Tech Lab at ARKEN Museum og Modern Art; Marie Gørvild, sociologist; and Nicklas Larsen, senior advisor and futurist at the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies. We each host one episode and present four different perspectives on the same field of interest. Below you can read more about the content of the single episodes, and find links to online listening.

Follow the link to visit the podcasts own website: https://www.techiesandartists.dk/

Listen to the podcast on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. 

The four episodes

#1 What comes after Big Tech?
The all encompassing big tech platforms are in many ways bigger than ever, but also facing growing opposition and criticism. In this first episode of Techies and Artist, we entertain a future without a few dominating digital platforms, when we ask: What comes after Big tech? Who is practising alternatives – and can we have digital technologies on other terms than we have today? You will meet a professor interested in alternative digital structures and an artist turned entrepreneur, who is behind a startup that he describes as the ethical Airbnb.

#2 Blurred Realities 
Our physical and digital worlds are merging and science fiction becomes reality with the arrival of the collective conceptual idea of the metaverse. Today we already see the early signs of virtual worlds and digital layers. In this episode we take a closer look at the future of the internet as it goes from 2D to 3D together with Simon Lajboschitz, Co-founder and CEO at Khora VR and performing artist and immersion designer Jakob la Cour. Tune in as we explore new applications of immersive tech with the award-winning trailblazers across domains of social impact, mental health, art and mysticism.

#3 Reimagining infrastructures
WWW was framed as the first truly democratic communication platform, a decentralised network open for everyone. Today the internet is commercialised and our primary online activities are governed by commercial infrastructures. The blockchain came along in 2008 and immediately people described it as a coming of a new infrastructure that is more open, democratic and more decentralised. We have invited two guests to talk to us about the possibilities and the dangers of the blockchain: Danish artist and entrepreneur Cecilie Wagner Falkenstrøm and researcher Natalia Avlona from Copenhagen University.

#4 Cosmic care
In this final and fourth episode, we will zoom in on one of THE most important challenges in the future of tech: Climate emergency! The climate crisis is at a critical moment and future strategies is not about quick fixing sustainable solutions – hope lies in acknowledging climate change as systematic inequalities. It is not about egoes – it’s about the planet. Moving forward towards sutainable futures we need to deconstruct the human centred perspective that has led to humanity positioning itself superior to other species. In this era of climate urgency, a vertical approach to innovation is replacing the neoliberal linear move-fast-and-break-things approach. Join us as we explore sustainable futures and ecological connectedness with Gry Worre Hallberg, artistic director and PhD and Michael Reibel Boesen co-founder of Massive Earth. He is transferring talent from the old economy, to a new and more sustainable one.

In the spring we initiated a collaboration between Catch, our local museum Museerne Helsingør and students from our local high school, U/nord in the field of Communication/IT and Design.
The students were given the task of communicating their city, Elsinore, via an audio narrative. The museum provided inspiration for historical content, Catch provided technological inspiration and told about the purpose of starting the collaboration, namely to invite more people to tell the city’s stories; we have become so used to hearing the same stories about Elsinore, stories about Kronborg, the sound toll and the shipyard, but maybe there are other stories hidden among the residents of the city?

The students have worked on developing three audio narratives. One based on Elsinore’s past, one from our present and one from a future Elsinore, where the city has been flooded, but the city’s houses still stand on the seabed.

You can listen to the stories here:

The Past

The Present

The Future

About the summer camp

Catch collaborated with Helsingør Teater and Passage Festival on a 3-day summer camp led by sound artist Julie Østengaard.

At the summer camp participants created soundscapes as a background for poetry readings they have developed and recorded of and by themselves. They explored the city and created a series of field recordings to be used to compose their own soundscapes. Julie Østengaard, who has worked with sound for both poetry reading, visual media, podcasts and audio plays, will present the participants with techniques for making field recordings and for processing these recordings in an audio editing program. Julie will guide, provide inspiration and concrete tools for working with sound to text, via methods that explore the text’s concrete elements, moods and associations and how these can be translated into sound in different ways.

The summer camps participants were selected and invited by Helsingør Teater and consisted of approximately 15 young people from Slovenia, Croatia and Denmark. The workshop will ran from July 21-23 and resulted in an exhibition that was displayed at JA-kontorets container at The Culture Yard, it was open for the public during Passage Festival in 26-31 July.

About Passage Volunteer Camp

Helsingør Theater and PASSAGE Festival established a volunteer camp for young people aged 18-25 in 2021 in connection with PASSAGE Festival 2021.

PASSAGE Volunteer Camp has received support to complete the camp from the European Solidarity Corps, established by the EU to exchange young people from all over Europe, strengthen their professional and social skills and provide opportunities for participation in inspiring projects.

Already in the spring of 2020, Helsingør Theater and PASSAGE Festival received a so-called Quality Label, which ensures that the participating organizations work responsibly with the young volunteers. A Quality Label is a prerequisite for participating in volunteer projects through the European Solidarity Corps.

PASSAGE Volunteer Camp involves local young people from Elsinore, as well as young people from Lincolnshire, England and from western Slovenia, in a learning process about culture in Elsinore. Among other things, the project worked on how to create development in a city with an investment in culture. At the same time, the young people was part of the practical running and organization of the PASSAGE Festival in 2021 and the idea is to increase the young people’s desire and interest to engage in volunteering, in general.

About Julie Østengaard

Julie Østengaard is a sound artist and electronic composer, graduated from the South Danish Music Conservatory in 2018. She works with sound as a sculptural and spatial phenomenon that is combined with the instrumental – this can be seen, among other things. in the work Concurrent (2020-2021), where 16 kinetic sound sculptures, investigate the interplay between acoustic and electronic sound.

Through performative interventions, Julie explores how electronic sound can have body and gestures and how a present encounter between work, audience and artist can arise.

Julie’s artistic approach is characterized by special instructions that are constructed from project to project. The instructions become her performative and compositional co-players. It becomes particularly interesting when a dynamic relationship arises between preconstructed and uncontrollable feedback, such as seen in Interfacing Thoughts (2019) where EEG data from a performer becomes “co-composer” in an algorithmic sound work.

Via the poetic language of music, Julie creates new listening situations in which the present manifests itself and is staged in different ways. Here, the music helps to amplify or transform the being into a different interpretive framework. This can be seen, among other things. in her latest work Augmented Sirens (2021) where she interacts with the warning signal, which is tested in the month of May and transforms the meaning of the sirens from a danger signal to an artistic experience.

https://www.julieoestengaard.com/