Sounds of Water
"Sounds of Water" is a joint effort of the Ars Electronica Center, Georg von Peuerbach High School and the Linz Art University’s Department of Graphic Education.
Water, its meaning for the city and its significance as mankind’s most important “foodstuff” occupies the focal point of "Sounds of Water," a cooperative project that’s part of an international UNESCO series evaluating multimedia tools used in project-oriented instruction.
From December 2006 to February 2007, project groups worldwide—including 15 class 1c students in Linz—took the UNESCO Young Digital Creators educator's kit out for a test run. This material is designed to facilitate project-based instruction with the aim of utilizing digital tools like online platforms, software and hardware for a creative, collaborative encounter with important global issues. The Linz project is programmatically entitled "Sounds of Water."
Attention was centered on the sounds made by water, which students recorded themselves and then processed digitally. In doing so, the accent was on creativity and working as self-starters displaying individual initiative.
The project advisors are Wolfgang Schreibelmayr (a faculty member at the GvP High School and the Linz Art University), Wolfgang Hoffelner (student of media design and graphic education at the Linz Art University) and Gerid Hager (AEC staff specialist in mediating cultural content). The project was carried out at GvP and the Ars Electronica Center as well as at a variety of locations where water flows, collects, evaporates, freezes….
WikiMap Linz served as the project’s online documentation, presentation and communications platform. In the spirit of the motto “think globally, act locally,” the students assigned the results of their work and their observations on the globally important subject of water to specific locations in Linz. Since the other groups of participants throughout the world have also made their own encounters with their respective themes available online, students are able to compare their work with other efforts, recognize differences and similarities, and thus learn to gain insights into the larger context.
