hearmanchester

In this guest blog post, Stardotstar’s Director of Business Development Gareth Langley tell us about their locative audio project hearmanchester.com. Commissioned by Manchester City Council the project is currently shortlisted for Best Public Sector Project, Best Use of Visual Design, and Tasty Website at Big Chip 11.

‘Heritage’, like ‘dietary fibre’ and ‘flossing’, we’re all agreed it’s important, but it’s not something many of us look forward to doing on a Sunday afternoon. Throw in the additional sex-appeal of ‘canals’ and ‘urban regeneration’ and the scene is set for a pretty tough sell…

But it’s just a matter of looking at the problem in a different way. From the outset we wanted to create something that really form-fits the unique physical location and the audience. How could we take maybe five minutes on your route from a to b and transform it into a more interesting experience?

Our solution was simple: create a cross-platform interpretation of the landscape, combining real-world locations with digital locative audioscapes, all consumable on your favourite handheld device.

At the tram station underneath Piccadilly Station, an installation of 10 photographic lightboxes introduce passengers to the 10 themes of hearmanchester.com. Stepping onto the towpath anywhere between Canal Street and Castlefield, landmark physical signage suggest a thematic URL to passers-by. The stainless steel typography is encased in modern pristine acrylic wrapped in an original girder, gently rusting into the urban landscape around. Type the signpost’s URL into your mobile phone and you can hear a 6-10 minute audio portrait hosted by the unmistakable John Robb, blending the real world canal-side location with a mixed reality audioscape.

To us, our users are (even) more important than our clients – after all, how can we meet our clients’ objectives if no-body is going to use it. So, creating a product that fits the users’ needs is key to a successful Stardotproject. Although there is always room to upgrade gracefully to an iPhone or Android app in the future, it was more important to us last summer that the web delivered experience works wonderfully on whatever device the user already has in their pocket: their iPhone, Blackberry, 3G, mobile, Nintendo DS, iPod, or mp3 player. As such you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes, print off the walking tour maps from your desktop, or listen to the audio portraits directly from the towpath on your mobile – the experience is great no matter where you are or what you’ve got. The content itself should also be accessible in all senses of the word. So, it doesn’t matter where you start your walk, which programme you listen to first, type in the URL on the nearest hearmanchester.com signpost, and discover more about the city you thought you knew.

As a local interactive agency comprised of both native and adopted Mancs, we thought we were fairly au fait with Manchester. But working on a project like this leads you to a whole new appreciation of the city we live and work in. If you can spare 70 minutes in your lunch hour listen to all 10 programmes, if not, my favourite is UNDERGROUND opposite Rain Bar, where our roving reporter Robb explores the secret tunnels 100 foot below your feet.

We are delighted that this project has been shortlisted for a number of awards around the country, not least the Big Chips here in the northwest. What we’re especially proud of however, is the fact that from kick-off meeting, to sign-off by Peter Saville, (via contract negotiations, concept refinement, research, programme creation, photography commission, website design and build, signage development, planning permission, regulations, and signage installation), was all delivered and completed on time, on budget, and in under 7 weeks. We couldn’t have done this without the help of our key consultants and partners, and a group of passionate clients who shared our vision to deliver a quality product regardless of important tight deadlines.

From the the Haçienda to the Hallé, from the splitting of the atom to the first programmable computer, to the birth place of the vegetarian movement and the pubs that Marx and Engels relaxed in after a busy day discussing communism, hearmanchester.com is the augmented audio tour for people that wouldn’t be seen dead doing an audio tour. Whether you’re Manc to the bone or Manc for a day, hearmanchester.com will make you proud to be in the city that invented both the factory, and Factory. Stroll along the Rochdale Canal and hear for yourself.

hearmanchester.com was devised, created and delivered by Stardotstar for Manchester City Council, with the help from 257 Ltd, , Graeme Cooper , All Out Productions and The Hamilton Project. If you think it’s Tasty too, you can vote for it by texting HEAR to 84433.