The Dramatic Potential Of Pervasive Media.
by Ralph Hoyte

Ralph Hoyte is a Bristol-based poet, writer and spatial text designer.Ralph’s artistic concerns are perhaps best exemplified through his current projects which include creating an audio tour for English Heritage for Dover Castle Great Tower (that rowdy lot Henry II, the sainted Thomas Becket, Henry’s devious queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, his jester, Roland the Farter etc); working with a sculptor and landscape artist on ‘The Garden of the Four Jewels’ - a text-based landart redesign of a square in St Paul’s, Bristol; marketing his epic Gothic ballad, (The Completed) Christabel, his completion of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s most unfinished poem, Christabel (performing time min. 4 hours) – and working from the PM Studios on a TSB (Technology Strategy Board) funded feasibility study into ‘The Dramatic Potential of Pervasive Media’ (2 days/wk until end June ’09)(with in-kind support from Hewlett-Packard Labs).

Ralph’s TSB feasibility study aims to scope ways in which pervasive media can provide new dramatic platforms for explorations in the categories currently known as ‘art’, ‘literature’, ‘poetry’, ‘drama’, ‘music’ and ‘dramatic interpretation’ (eg in the heritage sector); and to set up scratch scenarios to demonstrate some of these capabilities. Ralph comes to this field with a background of having, together with Liz Crow, filmmaker, created 1831 RIOT!, ‘the world’s first audio-play for locative media in an intelligent environment’ (The Guardian) for Mobile Bristol way back in 2004. 1831 RIOT! (downloadable at http://www.mscapers.com/) is locationally based in the horrendous Reform Riots of 1831 on Queen Square in Bristol and was used by HP Labs to testbed and develop mediascape technology.