When Sarah, Ollie and I conceived of The Riot Box Walk, we based the concept on our experiences in London. While in London, we made the box, took a walk and listened to music. People saw us coming and they would ask questions, dance, try to buy it and walk with us a while. Initially, we thought Amsterdam would be quite receptive to the Riot Box Movement, so we planned a walk directed by the people. We planned to walk through Vondel Park and Leidseplein. When we came across people who engaged the Box we would accompany them on their way for a while, providing the music. Our original concept really got to the heart of the Riot Box Movement. The Riot Box Walk challenged the traditional private culture of the ipod, but still retains music portability.
Unfortunately, Amsterdam was not receptive to the Riot Box. People didn’t approach us, they ignored us on the street or in crowds and rejected our advances. People sometimes yelled things at us, but we couldn’t understand them. Perhaps the language barrier hurt us, but the sensory qualities of Amsterdam were far more damaging to our conceptual walk. The streets of London were quiet and there were few visual distractions. In Amsterdam, there’s live music in the streets, late night bars and coffee shops blasting music into the streets, as well as neon lights and advertisements everywhere. The city is a sensory overload- The Riot Boxes couldn’t compete.
So we were faced with the challenge of re-conceiving our walk. We created I-Riot. Rather than try to engage others with music, we focused on ourselves. As we walked, whenever we were particularly taken with a song and location- we did a cube. The cubes reflect our personal connection to the music at that location. Our walk through Vondel Park started out as a personal reflection on the sculpted and controlled “natural environment.” We listened to the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds for the walk. Our cubes attempt to capture the haunting and beautiful quality of the park set to the Beach Boys. Pet Sounds synched up well with our surreal walk through the park at night. We listened to our ipods on shuffle for the rest of the night and as the music struck us we made cubes. We walked through Leidseplein to Dam Square.
As we approached Dam, I noticed the neon lights of the carnival were dark. It was rather fitting given the tone of our walk thus far. The cube at Dam square really reflects the quite and unearthly sense we got there. Eventually we made our way back from Dam to Vondel Park and went back through. Ultimately, the cubes reflect location, our emotion and the character of the music. Enjoy I-Riot.
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Posted by: Cleagofsslalk | December 28, 2011 at 03:08 AM