Day Trip to the Dales

The mayblossom is in flower! The magical creature is out of hibernation!

I've been working round the clock to get everything in place to deliver the cache boxes this week.. another trip to the Dales, this time a day trip, with a dawn start and midnight return.
The drive went well - through Leeds before the morning rush hour. And it was wonderful to pause for a late breakfast with my flask of coffee still steaming beside the bridge at Burnsall.

Then on to meet various landowners and agree locations for the caches to reside over the summer. Chrysalis have asked us to work with National Trust sites as far as possible, so we don't have access issues as the Trust supports the project, and guidelines for cache locations are already in place through the geocaching community and the National Park.

However some sites just call, regardless of boundaries or deeds!
Three of myne fall outside the Trust lands, so I've got a busy day ahead.. plus some extra filming to make sure I have a good variety of material to work with over the summer as the creature calls and the hunters respond.

Beautiful light today, friendly, welcoming people so generous with their time and interest.

In planning for this visit I was struck with the different paces of communication in the world today. Yesterday I called one site by phone, had a long chat with someone working there, a really helpful conversation with the owner who called me back soon after, and today I meet them and am shown around, suggested the best places for caching, and given a cream egg with my coffee: very welcome after the long drive!

Phone-calls, face to face meeting and the time to sit and wait whilst jobs are done to benefit from the generosity of another's time are all too rare at times. In some areas of my current work-life it would probably take 3 weeks and a lot of email disjunction to set up a meeting with the right person at the right time in the right place..  or more!

It's a refreshing day all round.

Dales at Easter

Spent a couple of busy, beautiful days filming, sound recording, photographing, geotagging, geocaching and generally getting immersed in the landscape in order to construct more of the HG story, compose introductory texts and videos, and confirm the locations for the caches....
Stunning scenery, sparkly spring lambs and superb sunshine made it an inspiring and  refreshing stay.

Day one:
Start: Leicester, making artwork for app 'splash' screen to send to Sean before I leave.
First stop: Skipton to collect sound recordings from Bobbie Millar of the Quarry Arts, Ruskin Rocks and Leeds University inter-disciplinary research projects.
Second stop: Gargrave for updates with Chrysalis Arts.
Third stop: a night a Malham YHA and a chance meeting with artist Petra, exploring overlapping interests of making artwork in the environment, walking, mobile technology and reaching a state of 'meditative' focus through activity.

Day two:
Equipment set-up, text-writing, map/route planning for day.
First stop Ingleton: to see the source of the lithophone rocks (and sounds).
Second stop: Upper Wharfedale - many secretive areas that you may get to explore if you take part in the geoartcahe project!
Third (eventual) stop: Kettlewell YHA

Day three:
Dawn recordings, equipment, text and map updates
First stop: Kettlewell area on foot
Seond stop: more locations in Wharfedale area...  still secretive!
Third (eventual) stop: Loughborough for app updates
Fourth (final) stop: Leicester to start editing editing editing!

Looking towards Ingleton

Lunch stop

Can you ever get the artist out of the work?

Stereo audio: hydrophone (underwater) and ambient (handheld) mics 

"What are you filming?".....

Time for a quick cache find!

Travelling light

Kettlewell

Screengrab from groundwork's full iphone app - great way to see where you are from the air/topographical/route maps. Showing Ingleton Quarry, my location and direction of nearest geocache (NOT HG!).

Ingleton Quarry

Hair, grass, wind

Hydrophone recording

Second Visit and Meeting

Yesterday I met with staff from the National Trust and Dales National Park, Stuart (the other artist working in this part of North Yorkshire) and Rick and FranceLeigh (project manager and coordinator) from Chrysalis, at Buckden.

Lots of good tips from Karen about how people interact with the 30 or so geocaches she 'manages', and extra things to consider when placing caches in the Park. Bird nesting patterns, rare flower cycles, military land use and local food production were amongst the topics raised discussing the landscape.

It was interesting to hear how Stuart's project is developing. Recapping Hunter Gatherer reminds me how much has happened just since my last visit 2 weeks ago - with the app in its third iteration and a definite pattern for number of caches, interaction with the locations and cycle of the digital media artwork, and a clearer idea of size, shape and necessities of the vital physical artefact - the geoArtcache container.

Just spending a couple of days and nights here, meandering around the park, soaking up the ambience and making a space to notice the things and places that catch my attention has been very useful. I can feel movement of the magical creature whose song we can almost hear whispering on the wind and sparkling off the dry stone walls. Maybe we'll get to know it more as people interact and share their stories about the treasures they discover.

A much softer landscape than I'd imagined ...

Dropped Pin  - Maybe the creature lives here sometimes ;)

Malham

View from my room at the YHA.
Woke up in the night with the next part of the picture of how the geo cache hunting & gathering will take form.