In 1998 Cleveland Arts together with The University of Teesside created the first digital residency for the Innovation and Virtual Reality Centre. Geoff Broadway was commissioned to undertake this placement with the support of the University and Northern Arts.
The residency enabled the artist to produce the digital work Salt Passages. This was a temporary installation utilising sonic sensors which responded to the movement of people passing through the entrance/corridor of the Innovation Centre. These movements triggered ‘passages’ of video projections and sound fields; the content of which was taken from recorded interviews and conversations, video footage and sound sourced from the context of Teesside.
The Salt Passages seemed able to convey the meeting of different voices; indicating the numerous shifts and changes in the cultural, social and economic life of the area. The medium used to create and view the work also act as a potent reminder of the social, economic and cultural implications of new technology.
Geoff Broadway has received critical support and interest for his practice and is currently lecturing in Digital Art at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Before completing the residency we were able to discuss the possibility of creating a more intimate and distributable version of the work on CD-ROM.
Cleveland Arts is pleased to announce that it has recently been awarded a Northern Arts Production Grant to create an interactive screen based version of Salt Passages, accompanied by small publication, with extracts from conversation and critical text exploring the context of the work and implications of new media within the public domain.
CD ROM distributed to individuals and organisations working with or fascinated by interactive media; as well as those interested in the shifting social and economic terrain of post-industrial locations such as Teesside.